“We’ll take a tram,” said one of the policemen.
They entered the tram; it was so crowded that they were compelled to remain upon the platform. Reaching the Plaza de Santa Barbara they got off, and crossing two or three thoroughfares they brought up before Las Salesas; here they turned a corner, passed through a gate, and walked down a long passageway at the end of which was a dungeon. They thrust Manuel in and locked the cell from outside.
They say that solitude and silence are, as it were, the father and mother of deep thoughts. Manuel, in the midst of this silence and solitude, could not discover the most insignificant idea. And speaking of discovery, he could not discover even in the world of phenomena a place where to sit; nor was this so strange, for there wasn’t a chair or bench, however humble, in the hole. Dejected and exhausted, he sank to the ground. He lay thus for several hours; all at once a pale illumination entered from above the door, through a transom.
“They’ve put on the lights,” said Manuel to himself. “It must be night now.”
In a moment there was a din of shouts and wails.
“You’d better obey orders, now, or you’ll be the worse off for it,” said a grave voice.
“But señor officer, I’m not the man. I’m not the man,” protested a supplicating prisoner. “Please let me go home.”
“Come along with you. Get inside!”
“In God’s name! For the love of God! I’m not the man.”