The Quest

The Quest

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Title: The Quest
Author: Pio Baroja
Release Date: July, 2005 [EBook #8496] [Yes, we are more than one
year ahead of schedule] [This file was first posted on July 16, 2003]
Edition: 10

Language: English
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THE QUEST
BY PÍO BAROJA
TRANSLATED FROM THE SPANISH By ISAAC GOLDBERG

CONTENTS
PART ONE
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
is Discussed 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
PART TWO
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
PART THREE
I Uncle Patas' Domestic Drama--The Bakery--Karl the Baker--The
Society of 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

PART ONE

CHAPTER I
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 old narrow-cased clock to
accelerate or retard, after its own sweet taste and whim, the uniform
and monotonous series of hours that encircle our life until it wraps it
and leaves it, like an infant in its crib, in the obscure bosom of time.
Soon after this friendly indication of the old clock, uttered in a solemn,
peaceful voice becoming an aged person, the hour of eleven rang 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 a neighbouring
church gave a single long, sonorous stroke that quivered for several

seconds in the silent atmosphere.
Which of the three clocks was correct? Which of those three devices
for the mensuration of time was the most exact in its indications?
The author cannot say, and he regrets it. He, regrets it, because Time,
according to certain solemn philosophers, is the canvas background
against which we embroider the follies of our existence, and truly it is
little scientific not to be able to indicate at precisely which moment the
canvas of this book begins. But the author does not know; all he can
say is, that at that moment the steeds of night had for an appreciable
time been coursing across the heavens. It was, then, the hour of mystery;
the hour when wicked folk stalk abroad; the hour in which the poet
dreams of immortality, rhyming hijos with prolijos and amor with
_dolor_; the hour in which the night-walker slinks forth from her lair
and the gambler enters his; the hour of adventures that