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"Now, as for living with you people," said Berlanga, "I'll be very glad to give five pesetas per. Or I'll better that, if you say so." "No, no, thanks," answered Zureda. "I don't want to be bargaining with you. We can all help each other. You and I are like brothers, anyhow."
After the sorry job was done, Berlanga cleared out and never came back till one or two in the morning. Then he went to his room and turned in without making a light, no doubt ashamed of his cowardly deed. For a while he tried to excuse himself. After all, thought he, the whole blame wasn't his. Rafaela's tirade and the wine he himself had drunk, had been more than half at fault.
The engineer realized that Berlanga, though a riotous, dissipated chap, was at heart a brotherly friend, far from base enough to betray him in any such horrible manner. Rafaela went with her husband to the stairway. There they both began again to inflame each other with ardent kisses and embraces of farewell.
Then, after a brief moment of silent struggle: "Darling! Don't you see? It had to be this way !" The wife of Zureda did not, in fact, put up much of a fight. A year later, Rafaela gave birth to a boy. Manolo Berlanga stood godfather for it. Both Rafaela and Amadeo agreed on naming it Manolo Amadeo Zureda. How pink-and-white, how joyous, how pretty was little Manolín!
Hardly had Manolo Berlanga left the shop when he hurried to his lodgings. He had no more than reached the front room when no longer able to restrain his evil thoughts he asked: "Has Amadeo got here, yet?" "He'll be here in about fifteen minutes," answered Rafaela. "It's nine o'clock, now. The train's already in. I heard it whistle."
"More than once, and more than twenty times; and they say worse than that, too. They say Berlanga beats your wife, and you're wise to everything, and have been from the beginning. And they say you stand for it, to have a good thing, because this Berlanga fellow helps you pay the rent." A couple of porters came in, and interrupted the conversation.
"What are you going to do about it?" "You shut your jaw," vociferated Berlanga, "or I'll break it for you!" Then his rage burst out. Joining a bad act to an evil threat, he rained a volley of blows on the head of his mistress. Rafaela stopped crying, and through her gritted teeth spat out a flood of vile epithets. "You dirty dog!" she cried. "You pimp! All you know how to do is hang around women.
All the hate that, long ago, had flung him upon Berlanga, now had burst forth again in a fresh, strong, overwhelming torrent. Suddenly Manolo stepped up to his father and seized him by the lapel. "You going to shut up?" he snarled, in rage. "Or are you bound to drive me to it?" Zureda's answer was a smash in the face.
Rafaela wrote to Berlanga next day, at her husband's request, telling him to come and see them. Promptly on the dot the silversmith arrived. He looked about twenty-eight, wore tightly-belted velveteen trousers gaitered under the shoe, and a dark overcoat with astrakhan collar and cuffs. He was of middle height, lean, pale-faced, with a restless manner, a fluent, witty way of talking.
That's fair, for us both to pay half." Berlanga accepted this friendly arrangement. As soon as they got into the street they hired a carriage. At Bombilla they had a first-rate supper and danced their heads off, till long past midnight. They went home afoot, slowly, arm in arm. Rafaela had drunk a bit too much, and often had to stop. Dizzy, she leaned her head on the silversmith's breast.
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