Page:The Criterion - Volume 4.djvu/510

 of all colours, carefully puts them together. 'Look, señorita! No more?'

'No, no more. How much?'

'The same. Thirty centavos.'

'It is much.'

'No, señorita, it is not much. Look at this little bunch. It is eight centavos.'—Displays a scrappy little bunch. 'Come then, twenty-five.'

'No! Twenty-two.'

'Look!' she gathers up three or four more flowers, and claps them to the bunch. 'Two reales, señorita.'

It is a bargain. Off you go with multi-coloured pinks, and the woman has had one more moment of contact, with a stranger, a perfect stranger. An intermingling of voices, a threading together of different wills. It is life. The centavos are an excuse, to these Indians.

The stalls go off in straight lines, to the right, brilliant vegetables, to the left, bread and sweet buns. Away at the one end, cheese, butter, eggs, chickens, turkeys, meat. At the other, the native-woven blankets and rebozos, skirts, shirts, handkerchiefs. Down the far-side, sandals and leather things.

'The sarape men spy you, and whistle to you like ferocious birds, and call 'Señor! Señor! Look!' Then with violence one flings open a dazzling blanket, while another whistles more ear-piercingly still, to make you look at his blanket. It is the veritable den of lions and tigers—that spot where the sarape men have their blankets piled on the ground. You shake your head, and flee.

To find yourself in the leather avenue.

'Señor! Señor! Look! Huaraches! Very fine, very finely made! Look, señor!'

The fat leather man jumps up and holds a pair of sandals at one’s breast. They are of narrow woven strips of leather, in the newest Paris style, but a style ancient to these natives. You take them in your hand, and look at