Manuel walked up to the Plaza de Oriente and
followed thence along Arenal Street.
A strip of the Puerta del Sol was being asphalted; ten or twelve
furnaces ranged in a row were belching thick acrid smoke through their
chimneys. The white illumination of the arc-lights had not yet been
turned on; the silhouettes of a number of men who were stirring with
long shovels the mass of asphalt in the caldrons danced diabolically
up and down before the flaming mouths of the furnaces.
Manuel approached one of the caldrons when suddenly he heard his name
called. It was El Bizco; he was seated upon some paving blocks.
"What are you doing here?" Manuel asked him.
"We've been thrown out of the caves," answered El Bizco, "and it's
cold. What about you? Have you left the house?"
"Yes."
"Have a seat."
Manuel sat down and rested his back against a keg of asphalt.
Lights began to sparkle in the balconies of the residences and in the
shop windows; the street cars arrived gently, as if they were vessels
floating in, with their yellow, green and red lanterns; their bells
rang and they traced graceful circles around the Puerta del Sol.
Carriages, horses, carts came rattling by; the itinerant hawkers cried
their wares from their sidewalk stands; there was a deafening din....
At the end of one street, against the coppery splendour of the dusk
stood out the tapering outlines of a belfry.
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