decorate
their entrances with head-stalls and straps, and those that have no
archway put up awnings. In the Square there are continually stalls set
up for earthenware jars and pitchers and for articles in tin.

In the outlying streets there are inns, at whose doors five or six mules
with their heads together are almost constantly to be seen; there are
crockery stores containing brooms and every kind of jug and glazed pan;
there are little shops in doorways holding big baskets full of grain;
there are dark taverns, which are also eating-houses, to which the
peasants go to eat on market days, and whose signs are strings of dried
pimentoes and cayenne peppers or an elm branch. In the written signs
there is a truly Castilian charm, chaste and serene. At the Riojano oven
one reads: "'Bred' baked for all 'commers.'" And at the Campico inn it
says: "Wine served by Furibis herself." The shops and the inns have
picturesque names too. There is the Sign of the Moor, and the Sign of
the Jew, and the Sign of the Lion, and one of the Robbers.

The streets of Castro, especially those near the centre, where the crowd
is greater, are dirty and ill-smelling in summer. Clouds of flies hover
about and settle on the pairs of blissfully sleeping oxen; the sun
pours down his blinding brilliance; not a soul passes, and only a few
greyhounds, white and black, elegant and sad, rove about the streets...

In all seasons, at twilight, a few young gentlemen promenade in the
Square. At nine at night in the winter, and at ten in summer, begins the
reign of the watchmen with their dramatic and lamentable cry.

* * * * *

Alzugaray gave Caesar these details by degrees, while they were both
seated in the hotel getting ready to dine.

"And the type? The ethnic type? What is it, according to you?" asked
Caesar.

"A type rather thin than fat, supple, with an aquiline nose, black
eyes..."

"Yes, the Iberian type," said Caesar, "that is how it struck me too.
Tall, supple, dolichocephalic... It seems to me one can try to put
something through in this town..."

III. CAESAR'S LABOURS

FIRST STEPS

"And what have you been doing all day? Tell me."

"I think, my dear Alzugaray," said Caesar, "that I can say, like my
namesake Julius: 'Veni, vidi, vice.'"

"The devil! The first day?"

"Yes."

"Show me. What happened?"

"I left the house and entered the cafe downstairs. There was no one
there but a small boy, from