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Updated: June 9, 2025
And all these years afterward, when he was once more a free man, Don Adolfo had said the same thing about young Manolo. Remembering this strange agreement of opinions, Amadeo Zureda felt a bitter and inextinguishable hate against the whole race of the silversmith a race accursed, it seemed, which had come into the world only to hurt and wound him in his dearest affections.
Zureda always came home from trips like these bringing some present or other for his wife; perhaps a pair of corsets, a fur collar, a box of stockings. The wife, knowing just the time when the express would get in, always went out on the balcony to see it pass. Her husband never failed to let her know he was coming, from afar, by blowing a long whistle-blast.
"Here's the toothache face!" he announced. "And here's the stomach-ache face!" Then the bell rang, and they heard the vibrant whistle of the station-master. "Here, give me the boy!" cried Zureda. He wanted to kiss him good-by. The little fellow stretched out his tiny arms to his father. "Take me! Take me, papa!" he entreated with a lisping tongue, his words full of love and charm. Poor Zureda!
Luckily all the witnesses testified in my behalf, and this, added to the good opinion the prison authorities have of me, has greatly improved my position. The indictment was terrible, but I'm not worrying much about that. To-morrow I shall know my sentence." All the letters of Amadeo Zureda were like this, peaceful and noble, seemingly dictated by the most resigned stoicism.
He had already guessed what Zureda was going to ask him, and the idea of being catechized revolted his pride. "It looks to me," he swaggered, "like you and I were going to have a few words." And immediately he added, as if he could read the thought of Zureda: "They've been telling you I'm thick with Rafaela, and you're after the facts." "Yes, that's it," answered the engineer.
"I'm in a hurry. We'll see each other to-morrow!" He saluted, and walked away. Amadeo Zureda, with Rafaela at his right and Manolo at his left, quitted the station. "Is the town very far away?" asked he. "Hardly two kilometers," she answered. "All right then, let's walk." Slowly they made their way down the road that stretched, winding, between two vast reaches of brown, plowed land.
And, a few minutes later, they met at the indicated spot. "Let's go where nobody can see us," said the engineer. "I'll go anywhere you like," answered Berlanga. "Lead the way!" They crossed the river and came to the little fields out at Fuente de la Teja. The shadows were thicker there, under the trees. At a likely-looking spot the two men stopped. Zureda peered all about him.
But this familiarity seemed quite brother-and-sisterly; it seemed justified by the three years they had been living in the same house, and could hardly be suspected of hiding any guilty secret. The notion kept growing in Zureda; it became an obsession which made him see the dreaded vision constantly, just as through another obsession, Berlanga's desire for Rafaela had been born.
"What do you want, anyhow?" she demanded, humble yet resentful. "Come to bed!" She obeyed. Many kisses sounded, given her by the smith. After a while the man's voice asked in an endearing yet overmastering way: "Now, then, are you going to be good?" Amadeo Zureda came back a couple of days later, eminently well pleased. His boy had played the part of a regular little man during the whole run.
Let me tell you! I I fell that's the living truth!" But Zureda shook the truth out of her with threats, almost with violence. "Manolo's been beating you, eh? He has, hasn't he?" She began to sob, still trying to deny it, not wanting to accuse her heart's darling. The old engineer repeated, trembling with rage: "He beat you, eh? What?" Rafaela took a long time to answer.
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