There was a window, wide open, and they peered in.
Stretched upon a marble slab lay Leandro; his face
was the color of wax, and his features bore an expression
of proud defiance. At his side Senora Leandro
stood wailing and vociferating; Senor Ignacio, with
his son’s hand clasped in his own, was weeping
silently. At another table a group surrounded
Milagros’ corpse. The man in charge of the
morgue ordered them all out. As the proofreader
and Senor Ignacio met at the entrance they exchanged
looks and then averted their glance; the two mothers,
on the other hand, glared at each other in terrible
hatred.
Senor Ignacio arranged that they should not sleep
at the Corralon but in Aguila Street. In that
place, at the home of Senora Jacoba, there was a horrible
confusion of weeping and cursing. The three women
blamed Milagros for everything; she was a common strumpet,
an evil woman, a selfish, wretched ingrate.
One of the neighbours of the Corrala indicated a strange
detail: when the public doctor came to examine
Milagros and remove her corset so that he might determine
the wound, he found a tiny medallion containing a
portrait of Leandro.
“Whose picture is this?” he is reported
to have asked.
“The fellow who killed her,” they answered.
This was exceedingly strange, and it fascinated Manuel;
many a time he had thought that Milagros really loved
Leandro; this fairly confirmed his conjectures.
During all that night Senor Ignacio, seated on a chair,
wept without cease; Vidal was scared through and through,
as was Manuel. The presence of death, seen so
near, had terrorized the two boys.
And while inside the house everybody was crying, in
the streets the little girls were dancing around in
a ring. And this contrast of anguish and serenity,
of grief and calm, imparted to Manuel a confused sense
of life. It must, he thought, be something exceedingly
sad, and something weirdly inscrutable.
Uncle Patas’ Domestic Drama—The
Bakery—Karl the Baker—The
Society of the Three.
The death of his son made such a deep impression upon
Senor Ignacio that he fell ill. He gave up working
in the shop and as he showed no improvement after
two or three weeks, Leandra said to Manuel:
“See here: better be off to your mother’s
place, for I can’t keep you here.”
Manuel returned to the lodging-house and Petra, through
the intercession of the landlady, procured her son
a job as errand-boy at a bread and vegetable stand
situated upon the Plaza del Carmen.
Manuel was here more oppressed than at Senor Ignacio’s.
Uncle Patas, the proprietor, a heavy, burly Galician,
instructed the youth in his duties.
