Señor Ignacio and the three boys sat down around a wooden block formed of a tree-trunk with a deep groove running through it. The labour consisted in undoing and taking apart old boots and shoes, which arrived at the shop from every direction in huge, badly tied bales and in sacks with paper designations sewed to the burlap. The boot destined to be drawn and quartered was laid upon the block; there it received a stroke or more from a knife until the heel was severed; then, with the nippers the various layers of sole were ripped off; with the scissors they cut off buttons and laces, and everything was sorted into its corresponding basket: in one, the heels; in others, the rubbers, the latchets, the buckles.
So low had The Regeneration of Footwear descended: it justified its title in a manner quite distinct from that intended by the one who had bestowed it.
Señor Ignacio, a master workman, had been compelled through lack of business to abandon the awl and the shoemaker's stirrup for the nippers and the knife; creating for destroying; the fashioning of new boots for the disembowelling of old. The contrast was bitter; but Señor Ignacio could find consolation in looking across at his neighbour, he of the Lion of The Shoemaker's Art, who only at rare intervals would receive an order for some cheap pair of boots.
The first morning of work was infinitely boresome to Manuel; this protracted inactivity became unbearable. At noon a bulky old woman entered the shop with their lunch in a basket. This was Señor Ignacio's mother.
"And my wife?" the cobbler asked her.
"She's gone washing."
"And Salomé Isn't she coming?"
"No. She got some work in a house for the whole week."
The old lady extracted from the basket a pot, dishes, napkins, cutlery, and a huge loaf of bread; she laid a cloth upon the floor and everybody squatted down around it. She poured the soup from the pot into the plates, into which each one crumbled a bit of bread, and they began to eat. Then the old woman doled out to each his portion of boiled meat and vegetables, and, as they ate, the cobbler discoursed briefly upon the future of Spain and the reasons for national backwardness,—a topic that appeals to most Spaniards, who consider themselves regenerators.
Señor Ignacio was a mild liberal, a man who swelled with enthusiasm over these words about the national sovereignty, and who spoke openly of the Glorious Revolution. In matters of religion he advocated freedom of worship; his ideal would be for Spain to have an equal number of priests of the Catholic, Protestant, Jewish and every other denomination, for thus, he asserted, each would choose the dogma that seemed to him best. But one thing he'd certainly do if he had a say in the government. He would expel all the monks and nuns, for they're like the mange: the weaker the sufferer, the more it thrives. To this argument Leandro, the elder son, added that as far as the monks, nuns and other small fry were concerned, the best course with them was to lop off their heads like hogs, and with regard to the priests, whether Catholic, Protestant or Chinese, nothing would be lost if there were nary a one.