Vidal, of the four, condescended to choose La Rabanitos and Engracia
as the objects of his protection; the two girls were forever disputing
over him. La Rabanitos looked like a pocket-edition of a woman; a
white little face with blue streaks about her nose and her mouth; a
rachetic, wizened body; thin lips and large eyes of schlerotic blue;
she dressed like an old woman, with her sombre little cloak and her
black dress; such was La Rabanitos. She was bothered with frequent
hemorrhages; she spoke with all the mannerisms of a granny, making
queer twists and turns, and she spent all her spare change on dry salt
tunny fish, caramels and other dainties.
Engracia, Vidal's other favourite, was the typical brothel inmate: her
face was white with rice powder; her dark, flashing eyes had an
expression of purely animal melancholy; as she spoke she showed her
blue teeth, which contrasted with the whiteness of her powdered
countenance. She leaped from joy to dejection without transition. She
could not smile. Her face was as soon darkened by stupidity as it was
illuminated by a ribald merriment, insulting and cynical.
Engracia had little to say and when she spoke it was to utter
something particularly bestial and filthy, of involved cynicism and
pornography. Her imagination was of monstrous fertility.
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