Absorbed in these reflections, he was passing along Alcala Street when
he heard his name called several times. It was La Mella and La
Rabanitos, skulking in a doorway.
"What do you want?" he asked.
"Nothing, man. Just a word with you. Have you come into your money
yet?"
"No. What are you doing?"
"Hiding here," answered La Mella.
"Why, what's the trouble?"
"There's a round-up, and that skunk of an inspector wants to take us
to the station, even if we do pay him. Keep us company!"
Manuel accompanied them for a while; but they both picked up a couple
of men on the way and he was left alone. He returned to the Puerta del
Sol.
The night seemed to him endless; he walked around and walked yet
again; the electric lights were extinguished, the street-cars stopped
running, the square was left in darkness.
Between Montera and Alcala Streets there was a cafe before whose
illuminated windows women passed up and down dressed in bright clothes
and wearing crape kerchiefs, singing, accosting benighted passers-by;
several loafers, lurking behind the lanterns, watched them and chatted
with them, giving them orders....
Then came a procession of street-women, touts and procurers. All of
parasitical, indolent, gay Madrid issued forth at these hours from the
taverns, the dens, the gambling-houses, the dives and vice resorts,
and amidst the poverty and misery that throbbed in the thoroughfares
these night-owls strutted by with their lighted cigars, conversing,
laughing, joking with the prostitutes, indifferent to the agony of all
these ragged, hungry, shelterless wretches who, shivering with the
cold, sought refuge in the doorways.
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