In the meantime the girls would be playing in a ring, the women would
shout from gallery to gallery and the men would chat in their
shirtsleeves; some fellow, squatting on the floor, would scrape away
monotonously at the strings of a guitar.
La Muerte, the old beggar, would also cheer the evening gatherings
with her long discourse.
La Corrala was a seething, feverish world in little, as busy as an
anthill. There people toiled, idled, guzzled, ate and died of hunger;
there furniture was made, antiques were counterfeited, old
embroideries were fashioned, buns cooked, broken porcelain mended,
robberies planned and women's favours traded.
La Corrala was a microcosm; it was said that if all the denizens were
placed in line they would reach from Embajadores lane to the Plaza del
Progreso; it harboured men who were everything and yet nothing: half
scholars, half smiths, half carpenters, half masons, half business
men, half thieves.
In general, everybody who lived here was disoriented, dwelling in that
unending abjection produced by everlasting, irremediable poverty; many
sloughed their occupations as a reptile its skin; others had none;
some carpenters' or masons' helpers, because of their lack of
initiative, understanding and skill, could never graduate from their
apprenticeship. There were also gypsies, mule and dog clippers, nor
was there a dearth of porters, itinerant barbers and mountebanks.
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