“Wicked? She’s a wolf, and has an awful temper. She’s capable of the lowest tricks. Formerly, when some young gentleman would follow one of her daughters, she’d have him come into the house and there she told him that as to her daughters, there was nothing doing. They could have her, though. Now she hangs around the barracks. She’s the cheapest of indecent hags.... But what she’s doing with her son is even worse.”
“What’s that?”
“Nothing. Just for the fun of it they dress him up as a girl and paint him up and don’t call him Luis, which is his real name, but Luisita la Ricopelo.”
“Christ!” muttered Manuel, bringing his fist down upon the table. “That’s too much. That ought to be reported.”
Three men and a girl took seats at the side table.
One of them was a rouged old man with a face seamed with soft wrinkles and an air of repugnant cynicism; the other looked like a wig-maker, with his carefully groomed side-whiskers and his curled hair; the third, bald, with a red nose and yellow, matted hair, looked like the symbol of decrepit youth.
The girl was very pretty; she had a thin nose, very fine lips, black hair, evenly parted; she wore a pearl-coloured cape with a collar of feathers; her mantilla was caught up in her chignon, framing her face and falling across her bosom.
Her features betrayed a constant restlessness and a sarcastic expression; she could not keep quiet for a moment; even when she listened, she fidgeted about and nervously moved her lips.
The cheeks of the entire quartet were aglow and their eyes glittered. The bearded fellow kept asking the girl one question after the other; she answered with the utmost impudence.
Manuel and Vidal cocked their ears to catch the conversation.