There were two shoe shops opposite one another and both closed.
Manuel's mother, who could not recall which was her relative's place,
inquired at the tavern.
"Senor Ignacio's over at the big house," answered the tavern-keeper.
"I think the cobbler's come already, but he hasn't opened the shop
yet."
Mother and son had to wait until the shop was opened. The building was
not the tiny, evil-boding one, but it looked as if it had an atrocious
desire to cave in, for here and there it, too, showed cracks, holes
and all manner of disfigurements. It had a lower and upper floor,
large and wide balconies the balustrades of which were gnawed by rust
and the diminutive panes of glass held in place by leaden strips.
On the ground floor of the house, in the part that faced Aguila
Street, there was a livery-stable, a carpenter's shop, a tavern and
the cobbler's shop owned by Petra's relation. This establishment
displayed over the entrance a sign that read:
_For The Regeneration of Footwear._
The historian of the future will surely find in this sign proof of
how widespread, during several epochs, was a certain notion of
national regeneration, and it will not surprise him that this idea,
which was launched in the aim to reform and regenerate the Constitution
and the Spanish people, came to an end upon the signboard of a shop on
a foresaken corner of the slums, where the only thing done was the
reformation and regeneration of footwear.
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