"You can have her if you wish," he said.
Vidal's former sweetheart likewise disappeared from Casa Blanca and,
after he had been unable to collect the two weeks' rent, the
administrator put Manuel out into the street and sold the furnishings:
a few empty bottles, a stew-pot and a bed.
For several days Manuel slept upon the benches of the Plaza de Oriente
and on the chairs of La Castellana and Recoletos. It was getting
toward the end of summer and he could still sleep in the open. A few
centimos that he earned by carrying valises from the stations helped
him to exist, though badly, until October.
There were days when the only thing he ate was the cabbage stalks that
he picked up in the marketplaces; other days, on the contrary, he
treated himself to seventy-eight centimo banquets in the chop-houses.
October came around and Manuel began to feel cold at night; his eldest
sister gave him a frayed overcoat and a muffler; but despite these,
whenever he could find no roof to shelter him he almost froze to death
in the street.
One night in the early part of November Manuel stumbled against El
Bizco at the entrance to a cafe on La Cabecera del Rastro; the
cross-eyed ragamuffin was bent over, almost naked, his arms crossed
against his chest, barefoot; he presented a painful picture of poverty
and cold.
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