"Out into the street with you!" she bawled at him, seizing him by the arm and sinking her nails into his flesh. "And make sure that I never see you here again, for I'll brain you!"
Manuel, stricken with shame and confusion, wished nothing better at that moment than a chance to escape, and he dashed into the street as fast as he could get there, like a beaten cur. The night was cool and inviting. As he didn't have a céntimo, he soon wearied of sauntering about; he called at the bakery, asked for Karl the baker, they opened the place to him and he stretched himself out on one of the beds. At dawn he was awakened by the voice of one of the bakers, who was shouting:
"Hey, you! Loafer! Clear out!"
Manuel got up and went out into the street. He strolled along toward the Viaduct, to his favourite spot, to survey the landscape and Segovia street.
It was a glorious spring morning. In the grove near the Campo del Moro some soldiers were drilling to the sound of bugle and drums; from a stone chimney on the Ronda de Segovia puffs of dark smoke issued forth to stain the clear, diaphanous sky; in the laundries on the banks of the Manzanares the clothes hung out to dry shone with a white refulgence.
Manuel slowly crossed the Viaduct, reached Las Vistillas and watched some rag-dealers sorting out their materials after emptying the contents of their sacks upon the ground. He sat down for a while in the sun. With his eyes narrowed to a slit he could make out the arches of the Almudena church just above a wall; beyond rose the Royal Palace, a glittering white, the sandy clearings of the Principe Pío with its long red barracks, and the row of houses on the Paseo de Rosales, their panes aglow with the sunlight.
Toward the Casa de Campo several brown, bare knolls stood out, topped by two or three pines that looked as if they had been cut out and pasted upon the blue atmosphere.
From Las Vistillas Manuel walked down to the Ronda de Segovia. As he sauntered along Aguila Street he noticed that Señor Ignacio's place was still closed. Manuel went into the house and asked in the patio for Salomé.
"She must be at work in the house," they told him.
He climbed up the stairway and knocked at the door; from within came the hum of a sewing-machine.