The Quest by Baroja, Pío, 1872-1956, Goldberg, Isaac, 1887-1938

Father and son spent their lives dreaming of mechanical contraptions; they considered nothing useless; the key that could open no door, the old-style coffee-pot, as queer as some laboratory instrument, the oil lamp with machine attachment,--all these articles were treasured up, taken apart and put to some use. Rebolledo, father and son, wasted more ingenuity in living wretchedly than is employed by a couple of dozen comic authors, journalists and state ministers dwelling in luxury.

Among the friends of Perico Rebolledo were the Aristas, who became intimate with Manuel.

The Aristas, two brothers, sons of an ironing-woman, were apprentices in a foundry of the near-by Ronda. The younger passed his days in a continuous capering, indulging in death-defying leaps, climbing trees, walking on his hands and performing acrobatic stunts from all the door transoms.

The elder brother, a long-legged stutterer whom they called Ariston in jest, was the most funereal fellow on the planet; he suffered from acute necromania; anything connected with coffins, corpses, wakes and candles roused his enthusiasm. He would like to have been a gravedigger, the priest of a religious confraternity, a cemetery warden; but his great dream,--what most enchanted him,--was a funeral; he would imagine, as a wonderful ideal, the conversations that the proprietor of a funeral establishment must have with the father or the inconsolable widow as he offered wreaths of immortelles, or as he went to take the measure of a corpse or strolled amidst the coffins. What a splendid existence, this manufacturing of last resting-places for men, women and children, and afterward accompanying them to the burial-ground. For Ariston, details relating to death were the most important matter in life.

Through that irony of fate which almost always exchanges the proper labels of things and persons, Ariston was a supernumerary in one of the vaudeville theatres, through the influence of his father, who was a scene-shifter, and the job disgusted him, for in such a playhouse nobody ever died upon the stage, nobody ever came out in mourning and there was no weeping. And while Ariston kept thinking of nothing but funereal scenes, his brother dreamed of circuses, trapezes and acrobats, hoping that some day fate would send him the means to cultivate his gymnastic talents.

CHAPTER V

The frequent quarrels between Leandro and his sweetheart, the Corrector's daughter, very often gave the neighbours of the Corrala food for gossip. Leandro was an ill-tempered, quarrelsome sort; his brutal instincts were quickly awakened; despite his habit of going every Saturday night to the taverns and restaurants, ready for a rumpus with the bullies and the ruffians, he had thus far managed to steer clear of any disagreeable accident. His sweetheart was somewhat pleased with this display of valour; her mother, however, regarded it with genuine indignation, and was forever advising her daughter to dismiss her Leandro for good.

The girl would dismiss her lover; but afterwards, when he returned in humility, ready to accede to any conditions, she relented.

This confidence in her power turned the girl despotic, whimsical, voluble; she would amuse herself by rousing Leandro's jealousy; she had arrived at a particular state, a blend of affection and hatred, in which the affection remained within and the hatred outside, revealing itself in a ferocious cruelty, in the satisfaction of mortifying her lover constantly.