Manuel stared at Roberto with a puzzled look, and shrugged his shoulders.
CHAPTER IV
Life In the Cobbler's Shop—Manuel's Friends.
The months of September and October were very hot; it was impossible to breathe in the shoe shop.
Every morning Manuel and Vidal, on their way to the shoemaker's, would talk of a thousand different things and exchange impressions; money, women, plans for the future formed everlasting themes of their chats. To both it seemed a great sacrifice, something in the nature of a crowning misfortune in their bad luck, to have to spend day after day cooped up in a corner ripping off outworn soles.
The languorous afternoons invited to slumber. After lunch especially, Manuel would be overcome by stupor and deep depression. Through the doorway of the shop could be seen the fields of San Isidro bathed in light; in the Campillo de Gil Imón the wash hung out to dry gleamed in the sun.
There came a medley of crowing cocks, far-off shouts of vendors, the shrieking of locomotive whistles muffled by the distance. The dry, burning, atmosphere vibrated. A few women of the neighbourhood came out to comb their hair in the open, and the mattress-makers beat their wool in the shade of the Campillo, while the hens scampered about and scratched the soil.
Later, as evening fell, the air and the earth changed to a dusty grey. In the distance, cutting the horizon, waved the outline of the arid field,—a simple line, formed by the gentle undulation of the hillocks,—a line like that of the landscapes drawn by children, with isolated houses and smoking chimneys. Here and there a lone patch of green grove splotched against the yellow field, which lay parched by the sun beneath a pallid sky, whitish and murky in the hot vapours rising from the earth. Not a cry, not the slightest sound rent the air.
At dusk the mist grew transparent and the horizon receded until, far in the distance, loomed the vague silhouettes of mountains not to be glimpsed by day, against the red background of the twilight.
When they left off working in the shop it was usually night. Señor Ignacio, Leandro, Manuel and Vidal would turn down the road toward home.