“I don’t think so. He goes to bed at a reasonable hour, even though he may go out to hold a conference with Sotopeña or to the club. He does not attempt to see Belén; she says so. My uncle is close-fisted, as you know very well, and on the score of economy is capable of being contented at home. Luis, I don’t say much, but it consoles me to see that she is sad and is suffering.”
“A nice consolation that is! Perhaps you are wrong, and that woman gets on with her husband perfectly.”
“If I were to see her cooing like a turtle-dove with him, I don’t know what would happen to me.”
“Why, that maggot would quit your brain. May the Old Nick get you!”
This conversation took place as we were leaving Mayor Street and were entering the famous Viaduct, or place for suicides. The quiet beauty of the afternoon tempted us to go up to the high iron grating and enjoy the view, perhaps the finest in Madrid.
Without stopping to look over the old books, text-books mostly, the greater part of them greasy and falling to pieces, which an old man who looked like a maniac had for sale in the open air and right on the ground, we put our faces close to the grating and delighted our eyes first with the glorious panorama on the left, the red palace of Uceda, with its white shields tenanted by fierce lions,—the thousand cupolas and domes of churches and houses, above which rose, elegant as a palm-tree, the Moorish tower of San Pedro. Then we turned to the right, enchanted with the fresh verdure of the garden, which stretched out far below us like a rug of pine trees and flowery shrubs. Far in the distance, the Manzanares traced a silver S upon the green meadows, and the Guadárrama reared its shining white line behind the hard, sharp outlines of the nearest ridges. But what fascinated us, the sublimest note of all, was Segovia Street at a fearful depth below us; down, down, down! Luis clutched my wrist, saying:
“My boy, this viaduct explains clearly the numerous suicides which have occurred on it.”
“It does, indeed, tempt one to throw himself over,” I replied, without ceasing to look down into that paved abyss, and already feeling in the soles of my feet the tingling that goes with dizziness.
“Look at that suicide, my dear boy,” suddenly exclaimed Portal, pointing to a man of squalid appearance, who was also leaning over the railing. “A man like that is liable to fling himself over at any moment.”
I approached the man out of curiosity. The supposititious suicide turned around. How long it was since I had seen his noble and expressive face, his dirty and tattered clothes, his black eyes and graceful bearing! Poor Botello! I felt a singular and extraordinary joy at meeting that ineffectual being, that social residuum, so inoffensive and useless.