"All men should do the same, master soldier."
"Yes, they are falser than Judas himself."
"It is men who are false; they fall in love with us, two at a time, and even that isn't enough for them."
"Eh, my good old woman, don't take yourself into the count, for you are out of the running."
"Holy Santa Gadea! Is there no one to defend an honest matron against the insults of this ruffian of a soldier?"
"This soldier swears that all women are not good for much."
"You insolent, shameless fellow!" cried out a loud chorus of women, who rushed furiously on him who had levelled that insult at them, and scratched and mauled him without giving him time to defend himself.
The men rushed to the aid of the soldier, who, in the end, found himself free from those furies, and went off from the crowd, well beaten, and with a face torn and bleeding.
At the same time a peasant approached the crowd and with very great curiosity asked what was the cause of the assembly; he muttered an execration when he could find out nothing distinctly, for what one said was in complete contradiction to the explanations of another. His chief wish seemed to be to get to the door, around which the people were still crowding, to see if the heroes of the recent fight would again appear in the entrance-hall; he then tried to force a passage for himself with his hands and head, muttering threats and oaths at the same time.
"I swear," he growled, "that even if I'm crushed to death, I'll know what is going on, for it must be something important when it brings so many people here, and I have not come to the city to live in obscurity as I did in Barbadillo."