The thought of being immured in the convent struck genuine terror into
their hearts.
"To think of never seeing the street," they moaned, as if this were a
most horrible punishment.
And the abandonment at night in the unprotected thoroughfares, which
inspired horror in others; the cold, the rain, the snow,--were to them
liberty and life.
They all spoke in a rough manner; their grammar and word-forms were
incorrect; language in them leaped backwards into a curious atavic
regression.
They spiced their talk with a long string of theatrical lines and
"gags."
The four led a terrible life; they spent the morning and the afternoon
in bed sleeping and didn't go to sleep again till dawn.
"We're like cats," La Mella would say. "We hunt at night and sleep by
day."
La Mella, La Goya, La Rabanitos and Engracia would go at night to the
centre of Madrid, accompanied by a white-bearded beggar with a smiling
face and a striped cap.
The old man came to beg alms; he was a neighbour of the girls and they
called him Uncle Tarrillo, bantering him upon his frequent sprees. He
was utterly daft and loved to talk upon the corruption of popular
manners.
La Mella said that Uncle Tarrillo had tried, one night after they had
returned alone from the Jardinillos del Deposito de Agua, to violate
her and that he had made her laugh so much that it was impossible.
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