The Fencing Master Read Online Free
Author: Arturo Pérez-Reverte
dreadful, again, covering yourself, one, two, parry, engage, break, come to close quarters ... The lad's making progress, Don Matías, real progress. He's still inexperienced, but he has a feel for it, he has talent. Time and discipline, that's all he needs." For sixty reales a month, everything included.
The sun was beating down, making the figures walking over the cobbles shimmer. A waterseller came down the street, crying his refreshing wares. Next to a basket of fruit and vegetables, a woman sat panting in the shade, mechanically brushing away the swarm of flies buzzing about her. Don Jaime removed his hat to wipe away the sweat with an old handkerchief he drew from his sleeve. He looked briefly at the coat of arms embroidered on the worn silk in blue thread—faded now by time and frequent washings—and then continued on up the road, his shoulders bent beneath the implacable sun. His shadow was just a small dark stain beneath his feet.
T HE Progreso was less a café than an antonym: half a dozen chipped marble-topped tables, ancient chairs, a creaking wooden floor, dusty curtains, and dim lighting. The old manager, Fausto, was dozing by the kitchen door, from behind which came the agreeable aroma of coffee boiling in a pot. A scrawny, rheumy-eyed cat slunk sulkily beneath the tables, hunting for hypothetical mice. In winter, the place smelled constantly of mold, and there were large yellow stains on the wallpaper. In this atmosphere, the customers almost always kept their coats on, a manifest reproach to the decrepit iron stove glowing feebly in one corner.
In the summer it was different. The Café Progreso was an oasis of shade and coolness in the Madrid heat, as if it preserved within its walls and behind the thick curtains the sovereign cold that lodged there during winter days. That was why Don Jaime's modest discussion group installed itself there each afternoon, as soon as the summer rigors began.
"You're twisting my words, Don Lucas—as usual."
Agapito Cárceles looked like the defrocked priest that he in fact was. When he argued, he pointed his index finger skyward as if calling on heaven as his witness, a habit acquired during the brief period when—by some act of inexplicable negligence, which the bishop and his diocese still regretted—the ecclesiastical authorities had given Cárceles permission to harangue the faithful from the pulpit. He scraped an existence by sponging off acquaintances or writing fiery, radical articles in newspapers with small circulations under the pseudonym Masked Patriot, which made him the frequent butt of his colleagues' jokes. He proclaimed himself a republican and a federalist; he recited antimonarchical poems penned by himself and full of the most dreadful rhymes; he announced to all and sundry that Narváez had been a tyrant, Espartero a coward, and that he didn't quite trust Serrano and Prim; he would quote in Latin for no apparent reason, and was always mentioning Rousseau, whom he had never actually read. His two bêtes noires were the clergy and the monarchy and he believed ardently that the two most important contributions to the history of humanity had been the printing press and the guillotine.
Don Lucas Rioseco was drumming his fingers on the table; he was visibly irritated. He kept fiddling with his mustache and saying, "Hm, hm," staring at the stains on the ceiling as if hoping to find in them sufficient patience to continue listening to his colleague's excesses.
"It's all quite clear," Cárceles was declaring. "Rousseau answered the question about whether man is naturally good or evil. And his reasoning, gentlemen, is overwhelming. Overwhelming, Don Lucas, and it's time you admitted it. All men are good, therefore they should be free. All men are free, therefore they should be equal. And here's the best part: all men are equal,
ergo
they are sovereign. Yes, that's right. Out of the natural goodness of man comes freedom, equality, and national sovereignty.
The sun was beating down, making the figures walking over the cobbles shimmer. A waterseller came down the street, crying his refreshing wares. Next to a basket of fruit and vegetables, a woman sat panting in the shade, mechanically brushing away the swarm of flies buzzing about her. Don Jaime removed his hat to wipe away the sweat with an old handkerchief he drew from his sleeve. He looked briefly at the coat of arms embroidered on the worn silk in blue thread—faded now by time and frequent washings—and then continued on up the road, his shoulders bent beneath the implacable sun. His shadow was just a small dark stain beneath his feet.
T HE Progreso was less a café than an antonym: half a dozen chipped marble-topped tables, ancient chairs, a creaking wooden floor, dusty curtains, and dim lighting. The old manager, Fausto, was dozing by the kitchen door, from behind which came the agreeable aroma of coffee boiling in a pot. A scrawny, rheumy-eyed cat slunk sulkily beneath the tables, hunting for hypothetical mice. In winter, the place smelled constantly of mold, and there were large yellow stains on the wallpaper. In this atmosphere, the customers almost always kept their coats on, a manifest reproach to the decrepit iron stove glowing feebly in one corner.
In the summer it was different. The Café Progreso was an oasis of shade and coolness in the Madrid heat, as if it preserved within its walls and behind the thick curtains the sovereign cold that lodged there during winter days. That was why Don Jaime's modest discussion group installed itself there each afternoon, as soon as the summer rigors began.
"You're twisting my words, Don Lucas—as usual."
Agapito Cárceles looked like the defrocked priest that he in fact was. When he argued, he pointed his index finger skyward as if calling on heaven as his witness, a habit acquired during the brief period when—by some act of inexplicable negligence, which the bishop and his diocese still regretted—the ecclesiastical authorities had given Cárceles permission to harangue the faithful from the pulpit. He scraped an existence by sponging off acquaintances or writing fiery, radical articles in newspapers with small circulations under the pseudonym Masked Patriot, which made him the frequent butt of his colleagues' jokes. He proclaimed himself a republican and a federalist; he recited antimonarchical poems penned by himself and full of the most dreadful rhymes; he announced to all and sundry that Narváez had been a tyrant, Espartero a coward, and that he didn't quite trust Serrano and Prim; he would quote in Latin for no apparent reason, and was always mentioning Rousseau, whom he had never actually read. His two bêtes noires were the clergy and the monarchy and he believed ardently that the two most important contributions to the history of humanity had been the printing press and the guillotine.
Don Lucas Rioseco was drumming his fingers on the table; he was visibly irritated. He kept fiddling with his mustache and saying, "Hm, hm," staring at the stains on the ceiling as if hoping to find in them sufficient patience to continue listening to his colleague's excesses.
"It's all quite clear," Cárceles was declaring. "Rousseau answered the question about whether man is naturally good or evil. And his reasoning, gentlemen, is overwhelming. Overwhelming, Don Lucas, and it's time you admitted it. All men are good, therefore they should be free. All men are free, therefore they should be equal. And here's the best part: all men are equal,
ergo
they are sovereign. Yes, that's right. Out of the natural goodness of man comes freedom, equality, and national sovereignty.
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