“And where does this man live?”
“Over toward Chamberí. I think he spends the days there reading and playing the guitar, and kissing his daughter’s photograph.”
“I’d be curious to find out just what he does.”
“Don’t you try. I once felt the same curiosity. One day I saw him leave a bowling alley on the Cuatro Caminos. ‘Let’s see what this guy is up to,’ I said to myself. I went there the next day and met him. He was in a jovial mood, playing, chatting, gesticulating. It seemed that he hadn’t recognized me. The next day the Cripple says to me:
“‘Don’t return to the place you visited yesterday, unless you want to break with me forever.’ I took the hint and never returned.”
The life of this unknown master, so pure and simple, yet so embroiled in swindlery and deception, was exceedingly curious. Manuel listened to his cousin as one who listens to a fairy tale.
“And the Colonel’s wife?” he asked.
“Nothing.... A gawky skirt. She was the mistress of a watchmaker, who got tired of her because she’s such an ordinary thing, and then she tied up with that soldier. She’s a wicked, filthy old creature.”
“She’s wicked, to be sure. That’s how she struck me from the first day I laid eyes on her.”