"That blonde?"
"Yes. Wait for me here."
Roberto walked down the road toward the gate.
The reading of the religious lesson began; from the patio came the slow, monotonous drone of prayer.
Manuel lay back on the ground. Yonder, flat beneath the grey horizon, loomed Madrid out of the mist of the dust-laden atmosphere. The wide bed of the Manzanares river, ochre-hued, seemed furrowed here and there by a thread of dark water. The ridges of the Guadarrama range rose hazily into the murky air.
Roberto passed by the patio. The humming of the praying mendicants continued. An old lady, her head swathed in a red kerchief and her shoulders covered with a black cloak that was fading to green, sat down in the clearing.
"What's the matter, old lady? Wouldn't they open the gate for you?" shouted the fellow with the coachman's hat.
"No…. The foul old witches!"
"Don't you care. They're not giving away anything today. The distribution takes place this coming Friday. They'll give you at least a sheet," added he of the hat mischievously.
"If they don't give me anything more than a sheet," shrilled the hag, twisting her blobber-lip, "I'll tell them to keep it for themselves. The foxy creatures! …"