"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 Señor 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.
PART THREE
CHAPTER I
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 Señor 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 Señor Ignacio's. Uncle Patas, the proprietor, a heavy, burly Galician, instructed the youth in his duties.