unconscious of having done a good action. Such actions are supposed
to bring their own reward, but experience suggests that it is best
not to count upon anything of a tangible nature.



CHAPTER IV. PURGATORIO.

Like lutes of angels, touched so near
Hell's confines, that the damned can hear.

Time: Five o'clock in the afternoon. Five o'clock, that is to say,
by the railway time. There is another time in Barcelona--the town
time, to wit--which differs from the hour of the iron road by thirty
minutes or thereabouts. But then the town time is Spanish, that is
to say that no one takes any notice of it. For into Spanish life
time comes but little. If one wishes to catch a train--but, by the
way, in Spain we do not catch, we take the train--a subtle
difference--if then we wish to take the train, we arrive at the
station three-quarters of an hour before the time indicated for
departure, and there we make our arrangements with due dignity.

Place: The Rambla, which for those who speak alien tongues has an
Arabic sound, and tells us that this, the finest promenade in the
world, was once a sandy river-bed. Here now the grave caballero
promenades himself from early morning to an eve that knows no dew.

Priest and peasant, the great lady and the gentleman who sells one a
glass of water for a centimo, brush past each other. The great lady
is dressed in black, as all Spanish ladies are, and on her head she