Then Marcos Calatrava seized the instrument. He was no player like Vidal; he could simply strum a few chords gently, monotonously. Marcos sang a Cuban song,—sad, languid, filled with a communicative longing for some tropical land. It was a lengthy narrative that evoked the negro danzón, the glorious nights of the tropics, the fatherland, the blood of slain soldiers, the flag, which brings tears to one’s eyes, the memory of the rout ... an exotic, yet intimate piece, exceedingly sorrowful,—and something beautifully plebeian and sad.
At the sound of these songs Manuel was inspired with the great, proud, gory idea of the fatherland. He pictured it as a proud woman, with glittering eyes and terrible gesture, standing beside a lion....
Then Calatrava sang, to the monotonous accompaniment of his strumming, a very languorous, doleful song of the insurgents. One of the stanzas, which Calatrava sang in the Cuban dialect, ran as follows:
Pinté a Matansa confusa,
la playa de Viyamá,
y no he podido pintá
el nido de la lechusa;
yo pinté po donde crusa
un beyo ferrocarrí,
un machete y un fusí