"I suppose you'll marry one of them," she said, and then turned the
handle and shut the door behind her. She walked slowly down the passage,
running her hand along the wall beside her. She did not think which way
she was going, and therefore walked down a passage which only led to a
window and a balcony. She looked down at the kitchen premises, the wrong
side of the hotel life, which was cut off from the right side by a maze
of small bushes. The ground was bare, old tins were scattered about, and
the bushes wore towels and aprons upon their heads to dry. Every now and
then a waiter came out in a white apron and threw rubbish on to a
heap. Two large women in cotton dresses were sitting on a bench with
blood-smeared tin trays in front of them and yellow bodies across
their knees. They were plucking the birds, and talking as they plucked.
Suddenly a chicken came floundering, half flying, half running into the
space, pursued by a third woman whose age could hardly be under eighty.
Although wizened and unsteady on her legs she kept up the chase, egged
on by the laughter of the others; her face was expressive of furious
rage, and as she ran she swore in Spanish. Frightened by hand-clapping
here, a napkin there, the bird ran this way and that in sharp angles,
and finally fluttered straight at the old woman, who opened her scanty
grey skirts to enclose it, dropped upon it in a bundle, and then holding
it out cut its head off with an expression of vindictive energy and
triumph combined.
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