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And all these years afterward, when he was once more a free man, Don Adolfo had said the same thing about young Manolo. Remembering this strange agreement of opinions, Amadeo Zureda felt a bitter and inextinguishable hate against the whole race of the silversmith a race accursed, it seemed, which had come into the world only to hurt and wound him in his dearest affections.
Another minute passed; for all women, even the simplest and most ignorant, know to perfection the magic secret of making a man wait for them. But after a little while, Berlanga heard Rafaela's bare feet paddling along the hall. The young woman reached the bedroom of the silversmith, and in the shadows her exploring hands met the hands that Manolo was stretching out to greet her.
Let's be going!" said Leandro to Manuel. "If we don't, I'm sure to do something rash." They escaped from the fair and entered a cafe chantant on Encomienda Street. It was deserted. Two girls were dancing on a platform; one dressed like a maja, the other, like a manolo. Leandro, absorbed in his thoughts, said nothing; Manuel was very sleepy.
Twenty years before, when Señor Tomás had told him of the relations between Rafaela and Manolo, he too had declared: "They say he beats her." What connection might there be between these statements, which seemed to weave a nexus of hate between the son and the dead lover?
Zureda, afraid of showing the tumultuous rage in his heart, said nothing more. The most ominous memories crowded his mind. A long, long time ago, before he had gone to jail, Don Tomás in the course of an unforgettable conversation had told him that Manolo Berlanga maltreated Rafaela.
Manolo, himself a bit tipsy and out of control, devoured her with his eyes. "Say, you're a peach!" he murmured. "Am I, really?" "Strike me blind if you're not! Pretty, eh? More than that! You're a wonder oh, great! The best I ever saw, and I've seen a lot!" She still had enough wit left to pretend not to hear him, playing she was ill. She stammered: "Oh, I I'm so sick!"
Hardly had Manolo Berlanga left the shop when he hurried to his lodgings. He had no more than reached the front room when no longer able to restrain his evil thoughts he asked: "Has Amadeo got here, yet?" "He'll be here in about fifteen minutes," answered Rafaela. "It's nine o'clock, now. The train's already in. I heard it whistle."
The night you left, the oil-bottle fell off the sideboard, and when I went to pick it up I got this bump." "How about that big scratch, there?" "Which one? Oh, you mean on my lip? I did that with a pin." "That's too bad! Take care of yourself, little lady!" Manolo Berlanga was there and heard all this. He had to bite his mustache to hide a wicked laugh; but the engineer saw nothing at all.
In this resolution he now persevered, although he rightly conjectured that the horsemen approaching his house were either the rearguard or a detachment of the disorderly-looking column of which he had a short time previously observed the passage. "Hola! Don Manolo!" shouted the officer, as he halted his party in front of the house; "what scurvy hospitality is this?
One night when Amadeo came home from the Casino where he and Don Adolfo, with the druggist and a few other such-like worthies, were wont to meet every Saturday, he found the door of his shop ajar. This astonished him. He raised his voice and began to call: "Manolo! You, Manolo!" Rafaela answered him, from the back room of the house: "He's not here."
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