“Dancing and pretty women.”
“Sure. Let’s go.”
They left the Café and went up the Calle de Carretas.
Vidal bought two orchestra chairs. It was Sunday.
The air inside the theatre was dense, hot, saturated with smoke and with the respiration of hundreds of persons who during the entire afternoon and evening had piled into the place. There was a full house. The piece was as stupid as could be, infested with silly, coarse jests delivered in the most insipid manner imaginable, amidst the interruptions and the shouts of the public. The curtain descended and immediately there appeared a girl who sang, in a shrill voice that went horribly off key, a pornographic ditty without an atom of wit. Then out came a painted, ugly old hulk of a Frenchwoman in a huge hat. She advanced close to the footlights and intoned an almost endless ballad of which Manuel understood not half a word, with the refrain:
Pauvre petit chat, petit chat,
Poor little kitty, little kitty.
Then she executed a few turns, kicking one of her legs till it touched her hat, and disappeared. The curtain again descended; a moment later it rose, revealing La Bella Pérez, who was greeted with a round salvo of applause. She sang a popular song very badly, smiling through several errors, and retreating to the wings after the number. The piano of the orchestra then spiritedly attacked a tango, and La Bella Pérez issued from the wings in a ballet skirt, a toreador’s cape around her shoulders, a Cordovan hat thrust down over her eyes, and a cigar between her lips. After the piano had concluded these introductory measures, she threw the cigar into the pit for the orchestra patrons to snatch at, removed her cape, and remained with her skirt tightly gathered back by her hands, thus revealing in sharp outline her stomach and her thighs. At the very first notes of the tango a religious hush fell upon the assemblage; a breath of voluptuousness stirred through the auditorium. Every face was aglow, every glance fixed glitteringly upon the stage. And the belle went through her dance with a frowning face and teeth tightly clenched, stamping her heels, causing her powerful hips to stand out when she would fold her skirts about her like a victorious banner. From this beautiful feminine body issued a stream of sex that maddened every spectator. At the end of the dance she placed the hat upon her stomach and gave her hips a wiggle that brought a roar of lust from the entire audience.
“That’s the girlie!”