Life had held no pleasure for him during those two years.
The tiny station presided over by his uncle was near a poor hamlet surrounded by arid, stony tracts upon which grew neither tree nor bush. A Siberian temperature reigned in those parts, but the inclemencies of Nature were nothing to bother a little boy, and gave Manuel not the slightest concern.
The worst of it all was that neither his uncle nor his uncle's wife showed any affection for him, rather indifference, and this indifference prepared the boy to receive their few benefactions with utter coldness.
It was different with Manuel's brother, to whom the couple gradually took a liking.
The two youngsters displayed traits almost absolutely opposite; the elder, Manuel, was of a frivolous, slothful, indolent disposition, and would neither study nor go to school. He was fond of romping about the fields and engaging in bold, dangerous escapades. The characteristic trait of Juan, the younger brother, was a morbid sentimentalism that would overflow in tears upon the slightest provocation.
Manuel recalled that the school master and town organist, an old fellow who was half dominie and taught the two brothers Latin, had always prophesied that Juan would make his mark; Manuel he considered as an adventure-seeking rover who would come to a bad end.
As Manuel dozed in the third-class compartment, a thousand recollections thronged his imagination: the events of the night before at his uncle's mingled in his mind with fleeting impressions of Madrid already half forgotten. One by one the sensations of distinct epochs intertwined themselves in his memory, without rhyme or reason and among them, in the phantasmagoria of near and distant images that rolled past his inner vision, there stood out clearly those sombre towers glimpsed by night in Almazán by the light of the moon….
When one of his travelling companions announced that they had already reached Madrid, Manuel was filled with genuine anxiety. A red dusk flushed the sky, which was streaked with blood like some monster's eye; the train gradually slackened speed; it glided through squalid suburbs and past wretched houses; by this time, the electric lights were gleaming pallidly above the high signal lanterns….
The train rolled on between long lines of coaches, the round-tables trembled with an iron rumble, and the Estación del Mediodía, illuminated by arc lamps, came into view.
The travellers got out; Manuel descended with his little bundle of clothes in his hand, looked in every direction for a glimpse of his mother and could not make her out anywhere on the wide platform. For a moment he was confused, then decided to follow the throng that was hurrying with bundles and bird-cages toward a gate; he was asked for his ticket, he stopped to go through his pockets, found it and issued into the street between two rows of porters who were yelling the names of hotels.