The light from the watchmen's lanterns danced across the grey pavement, which already was dimly lighted by the pale glow of dawn, and the black silhouettes of the ragdealers stood out against the heaps of ordure as they bent over to take the rubbish. Now and then some pale benighted fellow with his coat collar raised, would glide by as sinister as an owl before the growing light and soon some workmen passed…. Industrious, honest; Madrid was preparing for its hard daily task.
This transition from the feverish turmoil of night to the calm, serene activity of morning plunged Manuel into profound thought.
He understood that the existence of the night-owls and that of the working folk were parallel lives that never for an instant met. For the ones, pleasure, vice, the night; for the others, labour, fatigue, the sun. And it seemed to him, too, that he should belong to the second class, to the folk who toil in the sun, not to those who dally in the shadows.
END OF "TO BUSCA,"
(THE QUEST)
The second volume of the trilogy is called "Mala Hierba" (Weeds); the third, "Aurora Roja" (Red Dawn).