In this same year, 1869, we find the brothers housed in modest
quarters in the Barrio de la Concepción in the outskirts of Madrid.
Here Adolfo wrote some new poems and began a translation of Dante for
a _Biblioteca de grandes autores_ which had been planned and organized
by _La Ilustración de Madrid_, founded by Gasset in 1870. The first
number of this noteworthy paper appeared on January 12 of that year,
and from its inception to the time of his death Gustavo was its
director and a regular contributor.[1] His brother Valeriano
illustrated many of its pages, and here one can form some idea of his
skill as a portrayer of Spanish types and customs. "But who could
foretell," says their friend Campillo, "that within so short a time
his necrology and that of his beloved brother were to appear in this
same paper?"[2]

[Footnote 1: These articles of Gustavo's have not, for the most
part, been published elsewhere. There remains for the future editor
of his complete works a large number of such articles, which it
would be well worth while to collect.]

[Footnote 2: _La Ilustración Artística_, p. 360.]

Their life of hardship and anxiety was tearing to shreds the delicate
health of the two young artists, and on September 23, 1870, Valeriano
breathed his last in the arms of Gustavo. His death was a blow from
which Gustavo never recovered. It was as though the mainspring was
broken in a watch; and, though the wheels still turned of their own
momentum, the revolutions were few in number and soon ceased. "A
strange illness," says Correa, "and a strange manner of death was
that! Without any precise symptom, that which was diagnosed as
pneumonia turned to hepatitis, becoming in the judgment of others