[47] A man who finishes the bull with a dagger thrust.
CHAPTER II
When the husband of Señora Angustias died, the Señor Juan Gallardo, an excellent cobbler long established under a doorway in the suburb de la Feria, she wept as disconsolately as was appropriate to the event, but at the same time in the bottom of her heart, she felt the comfort of one who rests after a long march, and lays down an overwhelming burden.
"Poor dear soul! God has him in His glory! So good! ... so hard working!"...
During the twenty years of their life together, he had not given her more troubles than those endured by the other women in the suburb. Of the three pesetas that, one day with another, he earned by his work, he gave one to the Señora Angustias for the maintenance of the house and the family, reserving the other two for the up-keep of his own person, and the expenses of the "representacions."[48] He must respond to the civilities of his friends when they invited him to drink a glass, and the wine of Andalusia, although it is the glory of God, costs dear. Besides he must inevitably go to the bull-fights, for a man who neither drinks nor attends corridas ... why is he in the world at all?...
The Señora Angustias, left with her two children, Encarnacion and Juan, had to sharpen her wits and develop a multiplicity of talents to carry the family along. She worked as charwoman in the wealthiest houses in the suburb, sewed for the neighbours, mended clothes and laces for a certain pawnbroking friend of hers, made cigarettes for gentlemen, availing herself of the dexterity acquired in her youth when the Señor Juan, an ardent and wheedling lover, used to wait for her at the entrance of the Tobacco factory.
She never had to complain of infidelities or bad treatment on the part of the defunct. On Saturdays when he returned to the house in the small hours of the night, tipsy, supported by his friends, happiness and tenderness came with him. The Señora Angustias was obliged forcibly to push him in, for he persisted in remaining at the door, clapping his hands, and chanting doleful love songs in a drivelling voice, all in praise of his voluminous companion. And when at last the door was closed behind him, and the neighbours deprived of a source of amusement, the Señor Juan, in the fullness of his drunken sentimentality would insist on seeing the little ones, kissing them and wetting them with huge tears, all the while chanting his love songs in honour of the Señora Angustias (Olé! The best woman in the world!) and the good woman ended by relaxing her frown and laughing, while she undressed him, and petted him like a sick child.
This was his only vice. Poor dear! ... of women or gambling there was never a sign. His selfishness in going well dressed while his family were in rags, and the inequality in the division of the proceeds of his work, were compensated for by generous treats. The Señora Angustias remembered with pride how on the great holidays Juan made her put on her Manila silk shawl, the wedding mantilla, and with the children in front walked by her side in a white Cordovan sombrero, with a silver headed stick, taking a turn through las Delicias,[49] looking just like a family of tradespeople of the Calle de las Sierpes. On the days of cheap bull-fights he would treat her magnificently before going to the Plaza, offering her a glass of Manzanilla in La Campana, or in a café of the Plaza Nueva.