“Transparent accounts, patrona, and milky chocolate,” he said. “Here's enough to tide you over for now, and later … there'll be more where that came from!”

Doña Nicasia squealed blissfully, Sordo squeezed the torero's hand firmly, the pawnbroker admired his gold jewelry, and Gallegos stepped shoulder to shoulder with him, applauding. Everyone praised el Jarameño's generosity.

Ripoll did not appear for lunch and only reluctantly rejoined the group when he got back to find them still sitting around the table, digesting an extraordinary meal with the help of countless drinks of anisette and manzanilla.

El Jarameño completely replaced Ripoll in the collective estimation of the boarders. He was the horn of plenty, the life of the house, an inexhaustible font of jest and good humor. The curate confessed frankly that el Jarameño was “a real man,” and doña Nicasia always addressed him as hijo. With spontaneous consensus the house adopted the honorific title used by Bruno and the other toreros who were becoming frequent visitors—maestro is what they called el Jarameño, so doña Nicasia and her boarders followed suit. By coincidence, their adoption of this honorific term occurred just when the ministry finally notified Ripoll that his submarine design was unacceptable, that they did not want it at any price, or even as a gift. The news naturally plunged the engineer into a depression that he had to hide to avoid doña Nicasia's finding out and cutting off his food supply, as she was very likely to do if she discovered that, because of the ministry's decision, she would likely never recover Ripoll's debt to her, except perhaps on Judgment Day, if then. It must be admitted that Ripoll's intent was honest, that he clung to the notion of selling his submarine to somebody, to anybody, to private interests, to China, maybe, thereby paying off the immense mountains of debt, as high as the Pyrenees, that he owed to the owner of the house and to others. Resentment and fatigue soured his spirit and yellowed his skin. At the table, he sat sullenly, scowling and refusing to pay the customary homage to el Jarameño, blasphemous, aggressive, and irascible, growling insults that nobody except Gallegos understood at all, and he, only a word or two.

“Why don't you tell us anything interesting anymore?” asked the actor on a certain occasion.

“Because I've become an anarchist—really an anarchist, unlike you, who just pretends to be one. Any day now I'm going to alter my invention so that, instead of just sinking ships it will blow cities and entire nations to kingdom come! Oh, yes! Don't laugh! Entire nations with all their inhabitants … boom! To the clouds!”

“Aw, you don't want that,” replied el Jarameño benevolently. “What did all those innocent folks do to you?”

Ripoll shrugged and let loose one of the incomprehensible terms that he had gleaned from his extensive reading and scholarly dealings:

“They have done me harm, immense harm,” he said to the torero. “You still believe in innocent people, although arguably Herod eliminated all of them ages ago. I believe in other things. I believe, for example, that you and I and everybody on earth all descend from Anthropopithecus …”