"That's a lie, a damned lie, Señor Tomás! I'll cut your heart out for that! Yes, if the Virgin herself came down and told me that, I'd cut her heart out, too! God, what a lie!"
The tavern-keeper remained entirely self-possessed. Without even a change of expression he answered:
"All right! Find out what's true or false in this business. For you know there's no difference between the truth and a lie that everybody's telling. And if you decide there's nothing to this except what I say, come and tell me, for I'm right here and everywhere to back up my words!"
The tavern-keeper grew silent, and Amadeo Zureda remained motionless, struck senseless, gaping.
After a few minutes his ideas began to calm down again, and as they grew quiet they coordinated themselves; then the engineer felt an unwholesome and resistless curiosity to know everything, to torture himself digging out details.
"You mean to tell me," asked he, "that they've talked about that, right here?"
"Right on the spot, sir!"
"When?"
"More than once, and more than twenty times; and they say worse than that, too. They say Berlanga beats your wife, and you're wise to everything, and have been from the beginning. And they say you stand for it, to have a good thing, because this Berlanga fellow helps you pay the rent."
A couple of porters came in, and interrupted the conversation. Señor Tomás ended up with: