A macabrous sculptor might have hit upon a work of genius by cutting
the thoughts of this girl into the stone representing some infernal
Dance of Death.
Engracia could not read. She wore loud waists, blue and pink; a white
kerchief on her head and a coloured apron; she trotted along with a
swaying movement, so that the coins in her purse kept jingling. She
had been eight years in this brothel life, and was only sixteen in
all. She was sorry to have grown up, for she said that she had earned
far more as a little girl.
The friendship of Manuel and Vidal with these girls lasted a couple of
months; Manuel could not make up his mind to take up with La Mella;
she was too repulsive; Vidal widened the horizons of his activity,
tippled with a gang of _chulos_ and devoted himself to the
conquest of a flower-girl who sold carnations.
Engracia and La Rabanitos conceived a violent hatred for the lass.
"That strumpet?" La Rabanitos would say. "Why, she's already as
disreputable as us...."
One night Vidal did not put in his usual appearance at Casa Blanca,
and two or three days later he showed up at the Puerta del Sol with a
tall, buxom woman garbed in grey.
"Who's that?" asked Manuel of his cousin.
"Her name's Violeta; I've taken up with her."
"And the other one, at Casa Blanca?"
Vidal shrugged his shoulders.
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