Produced by Eric Eldred, Cam, and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team
TRANSLATED FROM THE SPANISH By ISAAC GOLDBERG
I Preamble—Somewhat Immoral Notions of a Boarding-House Keeper—A
Balcony is Heard Closing—A Cricket Chirps
II Doña Casiana's House—A Morning Ceremony—Conspiracy—Wherein isDiscussed The Nutritive Value of Bones—Petra and Her Family—Manuel;his Arrival in Madrid
III First Impressions of Madrid—The Boarders—Idyll—Sweet and
Delightful Lessons
IV Oh, Love, Love!—What's Don Telmo Doing?—Who is Don
Telmo?—Wherein the Student and Don Telmo Assume Certain Novelesque
Proportions
I "The Regeneration of Footgear" and "The Lion of the Bootmaker's
Art"—The First Sunday—An Escapade—El Bizco and his Gang
II The "Big Yard" or Uncle Rilo's House—Local Enmities
III Roberto Hastings at the Shoemaker's—The Procession of
Beggars—Court of Miracles
IV Life in the Cobbler's Shop—Manuel's Friends
V La Blasa's Tavern
VI Roberto in Quest of a Woman—El Tabuenca and his
Inventions—Don Alonso or the Snake-Man
VII The Kermesse on Pasión Street—"The Dude"—A Café Chantant
VIII Leandro's Irresolution—In La Blasa's Tavern—The Man with the
Three Cards—The Duel with Valencia
IX An Unlikely Tale—Manuel's Sisters—Life's Baffling Problems
I Uncle Patas' Domestic Drama—The Bakery—Karl the Baker—The Societyof the Three
II One of the Many Disagreeable Ways of Dying in Madrid—The
Orphan—El Cojo and his Cave—Night in the Observatory
III Meeting with Roberto—Roberto Narrates the Origin of a Fantastic
Fortune
IV Dolores the Scandalous—Pastiri's Tricks—Tender Savagery—A
Modest Out-of-the-way Robbery
V Gutter Vestals—The Troglodites
VI Señor Custodio and his Establishment—The Free Life
VII Señor Custodio's Ideas—La Justa, el Carnicerín and El
Conejo
VIII The Square—A Wedding in La Bombilla—The Asphalt Caldrons
Preamble—Somewhat Immoral Notions of a Boarding-House Keeper—A
Balcony Is Heard Closing—A Cricket Chirps.
The clock in the corridor had just struck twelve, in a leisurely,rhythmic, decorous manner. It was the habit of that tall oldnarrow-cased clock to accelerate or retard, after its own sweet tasteand whim, the uniform and monotonous series of hours that encircle ourlife until it wraps it and leaves it, like an infant in its crib, inthe obscure bosom of time.
Soon after this friendly indication of the old clock, uttered in asolemn, peaceful voice becoming an aged person, the hour of elevenrang out in a shrill, grotesque fashion, with juvenile impertinence,from a petulant little clock of the vicinity, and a few minutes later,to add to the confusion and the chronometric disorder, the bell of aneighbouring church gave