Part 43 (1/2)

Summer went by; Justa began to make preparations for her wedding, and in the meantime Manuel thought of leaving Senor Custodio's house and getting out of Madrid altogether. Whither? He didn't know; the farther away, the better, he thought.

In November one of Justa's shopmates got married, in La Bombilla, Senor Custodio and his wife found it impossible to attend, so that Manuel accompanied Justa.

The bride lived in the Ronda de Toledo, and her house was the meeting-place for all the guests.

At the door a large omnibus was waiting; it could hold any number of persons.

All the guests piled in; Justa and Manuel found a place on the top and waited a while. The bride and bridegroom appeared amidst a throng of gamins who were shouting at the top of their lungs; the groom looked like a dry goods clerk; she, emaciated and ugly, looked like a monkey; the best man and the bridesmaids followed after, and in this group a fat old lady, flat-nosed, cross-eyed, white-haired, with a red rose in her hair and a guitar in her hand, advanced with a _flamenco_ air.

”Hurrah for the bride and groom! Hurrah for the best man and the maid-of-honour!” shouted the cross-eyed fright; there was a chorus of unenthusiastic responses and the coach departed amidst a hubbub and a shouting. On the way everybody shrieked and sang.

Manuel did not dare to rejoice at his failure to see El Carnicerin in the crowd; he felt positive that the fellow would show up at Los Viveros.

It was a beautiful, humid morning; the trees, copper-hued, were losing their yellow leaves in the gentle gusts; white clouds furrowed the pale sky, the road glittered with the moisture; afar in the fields burned heaps of dead leaves and thick curls of smoke rolled along close to the soil.

The coach halted before one of the inns of Los Viveros; everybody rolled out of the omnibus and the shouts and clamouring were heard anew. El Carnicerin was not there, but he soon appeared and sat down at table right beside Justa.

The day seemed hateful to Manuel; there were moments in which he felt like crying. He spent the whole afternoon despairing in a corner, watching Justa dance with her sweetheart in time to the tunes of a barrel-organ.

At night Manuel went over to Justa and with comic gravity, said to her abruptly:

”Come along, you--” and seeing that she paid no attention to him, he added, ”Listen, Justa, let's be going home.”

”Get away. Leave me in peace!” she retorted rudely.

”Your father told you to be back home by night. Come along, now.”

”See here, my child,” interposed El Carnicerin with calm deliberation.

”Who gave you a taper to bear at this funeral?”

”I was entrusted to....”

”All right. Shut up. Understand?”

”I don't feel like it.”

”Well, I'll make you with a good ear-warming.”

”You make me? ... Why, you're nothing but a low-down lout, a thief--”

and Manuel was advancing against El Carnicerin, when one of the fellow's friends gave him a punch in the head that stunned him. The boy made another attempt to rush upon the butcher's son; two or three guests pushed him out of the way and shoved him out on to the road at the door of the inn.

”Starveling! ... Loafer!” shouted Manuel.

”You're one yourself,” cried one of Justa's friends tauntingly after him. ”Rabble! Guttersnipe!”

Manuel, filled with shame and thirsting for vengeance, still half dazed by the blow, thrust his cap down over his face and stamped along the road weeping with rage. Soon after he left he heard somebody running toward him from behind.

”Manuel, Manolillo,” said Justa to him in an affectionate, jesting voice. ”What's the matter?”

Manuel breathed heavily and a long sigh of grief escaped him.