"Hurrah for the bride and groom! Hurrah for the best man and the
maid-of-honour!" shouted the cross-eyed fright; there was a chorus of
unenthusiastic responses and the coach departed amidst a hubbub and a
shouting. On the way everybody shrieked and sang.
Manuel did not dare to rejoice at his failure to see El Carnicerin in
the crowd; he felt positive that the fellow would show up at Los
Viveros.
It was a beautiful, humid morning; the trees, copper-hued, were losing
their yellow leaves in the gentle gusts; white clouds furrowed the
pale sky, the road glittered with the moisture; afar in the fields
burned heaps of dead leaves and thick curls of smoke rolled along
close to the soil.
The coach halted before one of the inns of Los Viveros; everybody
rolled out of the omnibus and the shouts and clamouring were heard
anew. El Carnicerin was not there, but he soon appeared and sat down
at table right beside Justa.
The day seemed hateful to Manuel; there were moments in which he felt
like crying. He spent the whole afternoon despairing in a corner,
watching Justa dance with her sweetheart in time to the tunes of a
barrel-organ.
At night Manuel went over to Justa and with comic gravity, said to her
abruptly:
"Come along, you--" and seeing that she paid no attention to him, he
added, "Listen, Justa, let's be going home.
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