An Execution—On the Sotillo Bridge—Destiny It was a night in August; Manuel, Vidal, La Flora and La Justa had just left El Dorado theatre, when Vidal suggested:
“They’re executing a soldier at daybreak. Shall we take it in?”
“Sure. Let’s go,” answered La Flora and La Justa.
It was a balmy, beautiful night.
They went up the Calle Alcalá and entered the Fornos. At about three they left the Café and took an open hack for the place of the execution.
They left the carriage opposite the Model Prison.
It was too early. It had not yet dawned.
They circled around the prison by a side-street that was no more than a ditch running through the sand and finally reached the clearings near the Calle de Rosales. The structure of the Model Prison, viewed from these desolate fields, assumed an imposing appearance; it looked like a fort bathing there in the blue, spectral illumination of the arc lights. From time to time the sentinels sang out a prolonged watchword that produced a terrible impression of anguish.
[286]
“What a sad house!” murmured Vidal. “And to think of all the people shut up in it!”
“Pse.... Let them all be shot,” replied La Justa, indifferently.
But Vidal could not feel this disdain, and grew indignant at La Justa’s remark.
“Then what do they rob for?” she countered.
“And you, why do you ...?”
“Because I need to eat.”
“Well, they need to eat, too.”
La Flora now recalled that as a little girl she had witnessed the execution of La Higinia. She had gone with the janitress’s daughter.
“There’s where the scaffold was,” and she pointed to the middle of a wall opposite the death-house. “The clearings were jammed with people. La Higinia came along dressed all in black, leaning against the Brethren of Peace and Charity. She must have been dead from fright already. They sat her down on the stool and a priest with a raised cross in his hand stood before her; the executioner tied her feet with rope, catching her skirts in the knot; then he blindfolded her with a black handkerchief and getting behind her gave two turns to the wheel. Right away he removed the handkerchief from her face and the woman fell stiff upon the boards.
“Then,” concluded La Flora, “the other girl and myself had to run off, for the guards charged the crowd.”
Vidal paled at this detailed recital of an execution.
[287]
“These things take the life out of me,” he said, placing one hand over his heart.
“Then why did you want to come here?” asked Manuel. “Do you want to turn back?”
“No. No.”
They proceeded to the Plaza de Moncloa. At one of the corners of the prison was a seething throng. Day was breaking. A border of gold was beginning to glow on the horizon. Through the Calle de la Princesa came trooping a company of artillery; it looked phantasmal in the hazy light of dawn. The company came to a halt before the prison.
“Now let’s see whether they’ll give us the slip and shoot him somewhere else,” muttered a little old fellow, to whom the idea of getting up so early in the morning and then being cheated out of an execution must have appeared as the height of the disagreeable.
“They’re executing him over toward San Bernardino,” announced a ragamuffin.
There was a general stampede for the scene of the execution. And indeed, just below some clearings near the Paseo de Areneros the soldiers had formed into a square. There was an audience of actors, night-owls, chorus-girls and prostitutes seated around in hacks, and a throng of loafers and beggars. The barren area was fairly vast. A grey wagon came rumbling along at top speed directly into the centre of the square; three figures stepped down, looking from the distance like dolls; the men beside the criminal removed their high hats. The[288] soldier who was to be executed could not be seen very well.
“Down with your heads!” cried the crowd at the rear. “Let everybody have a chance to see!” Eight cavalrymen stepped forward with short rifles in their hands and took up a position in front of the condemned man. Not exactly opposite him, naturally, for, moving along sideways like an animal with many feet, they proceeded several metres. The sun shot brilliant reflections from the yellow sand of the clearing, from the helmets and the belts of the soldiers. No voice of command was heard; the rifles took aim.
“Put down your heads!” came again in angry accents from those who were in the third and fourth row of the spectators.
A detonation, not very loud, rang out. Shortly afterwards came another.
“That’s the finishing touch,” muttered Vidal.
The audience broke up and made off toward Madrid. There was the roll of drums and the blare of bugles. The sun glowed in the window panes of the houses nearby. Manuel, Vidal and the two women were walking through the Paseo de Areneros when they heard the crack of another discharge.
“He wasn’t dead yet,” added Vidal, paler than ever.
The four became moody.
“I tell you what,” spoke up Vidal. “I have an idea for wiping away the unpleasant impression this has made upon us. Let’s go for a little excursion and lunch this afternoon.”
[289]
“Where?” asked Manuel.
“Over by the river. It’ll remind us of the good old days. Eh. What do you say?”
“Right-o.”
“La Justa won’t be busy?”
“No.”
“Settled, then. At noon we’ll all meet at Se?ora Benita’s restaurant, near the Pier and Sotillo Bridge.”
“Agreed.”
“And now let’s be off to catch a snooze.”
Which they did. At twelve Manuel and La Justa left the house and made their way to the restaurant. The others had not yet arrived.
They sat down upon a bench; La Justa was in bad humour. She bought ten céntimos’ worth of peanuts and began to nibble at them.
“Want any?” she asked Manuel.
“No. They get into my teeth.”
“Then I don’t want any, either,” and she threw them to the ground.
“What do you buy them for, if you throw them away afterward?”
“Because I feel like it.”
“Suits me. Do as you please.”
For an appreciable period they sat there waiting, neither breaking the silence. La Justa, at last beyond her patience, got up.
“I’m going home,” she said.
“I’ll wait,” replied Manuel.
“Go ahead, then, and may they darn you with black thread, you thief.”
[290]
Manuel shrugged his shoulders.
“And give you blood pudding.”
“Thanks.”
La Justa, who was on the point of leaving, caught sight just then of Calatrava and La Aragonesa, and Vidal in company of La Flora. She paused. Calatrava had a guitar with him.
An organ-grinder happened to be passing the restaurant. The Cripple stopped him and they danced to his tunes, Vidal with La Flora, La Justa with Manuel.
Now new couples appeared, among them a fat, flat-nosed virago dressed in ridiculous fashion and accompanied by a fellow with mutton-chop whiskers and the general appearance of a gipsy. La Justa, who was in an insolent, provocative mood, began to laugh at the fat woman. The aggrieved party replied in a depreciative, sarcastic voice, scoring each word:
“These cheap fly-by-nights....”
“The dirty whore!” muttered La Justa, and began to si............