And the abandonment at night in the unprotected thoroughfares, which inspired horror in others; the cold, the rain, the snow,—were to them liberty and life.
They all spoke in a rough manner; their grammar and word-forms were incorrect; language in them leaped backwards into a curious atavic regression.
They spiced their talk with a long string of theatrical lines and "gags."
The four led a terrible life; they spent the morning and the afternoon in bed sleeping and didn't go to sleep again till dawn.
"We're like cats," La Mellá would say. "We hunt at night and sleep by day."
La Mellá, La Goya, La Rabanitos and Engracia would go at night to the centre of Madrid, accompanied by a white-bearded beggar with a smiling face and a striped cap.
The old man came to beg alms; he was a neighbour of the girls and they called him Uncle Tarrillo, bantering him upon his frequent sprees. He was utterly daft and loved to talk upon the corruption of popular manners.
La Mellá said that Uncle Tarrillo had tried, one night after they had returned alone from the Jardinillos del Deposito de Agua, to violate her and that he had made her laugh so much that it was impossible.
The mendicant would wax indignant at the tale and would pursue the indiscreet maid with all the ardour of an old faun.
Of the four girls the ugliest was La Mellá; with her big, deformed head, her black eyes, her wide mouth and broken teeth, her dumpy figure, she looked like the lady-jester of some ancient princess. She had been on the point of becoming a chorus-girl; she was balked, however, for despite her good voice and excellent ear for music, she could not pronounce the words clearly because of her missing teeth.