Some of the men in tatters carried, slung over their
shoulders, black sacks and game-bags; others huge cudgels in their
hands; one burly negro, his face tattooed with deep stripes,--
doubtless a slave in former days,--leaned against the wall in
dignified indifference, clothed in rags; barefoot urchins and mangy
dogs scampered about amongst the men and women; the swarming,
agitated, palpitating throng of beggars seethed like an anthill.
"Let's go," said Roberto. "Neither of the women I'm looking for is
here.... Did you notice," he added, "how few human faces there are
among men! All you can read in the features of these wretches is
mistrust, abjection, malice, just as among the rich you find only
solemnity, gravity, pedantry. It's curious, isn't it? All cats have
the face of cats; all oxen look like oxen; while the majority of human
beings haven't a human semblance."
Roberto and Manuel left the patio. They sat down opposite La Doctrina,
on the other side of the road, amid some sandy clearings.
"These doings of mine," began Roberto, "may strike you as queer. But
they won't seem so strange when I tell you that I'm looking for two
women here; one of them a poor beggar who can make me rich; the other,
a rich lady, who perhaps would make me poor."
Manuel stared at Roberto in amazement. He had always harboured a
certain suspicion that there was something wrong with the student's
head.
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