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their barracks.
    Having occupied the Alcazar, the magnificent fortress
palace of Charles V, they next took over the Tribunal, or Casa
de Consejos, and when that was full, they began to invade the
seclusion of monasteries and convents, till finally they turned
even churches into stables. Such was the state of affairs in the
town where the events I am about to relate took place, when,
one night, very late, there arrived as many as one hundred
dragoons, tall, broad and arrogant (as our grandmothers still
recall with bated breath), wrapped in their dark uniform
capes and filling the narrow, deserted streets that run from the
Puerta del Sol to the Plaza de Zocodover with the clanking of
their weapons and the loud ringing of their horses' hooves,
which struck sparks from the cobbles.
    They were under the command of a youngish officer who
rode about thirty paces in front of his men, speaking in low
tones to another man, also a soldier, to judge from his clothing.
    The latter, who was walking ahead of his companion with a
lantern, appeared to be his guide through that labyrinth of
dark, narrow, winding streets.
    `Truly,' said the rider to his companion, `if the lodgings
being prepared for us are such as you describe, it would perhaps almost be better to set up camp in the countryside, or in
the middle of a square.'

    `What can I do, Captain,' replied the guide, who was, in
fact, a billeting officer. `You couldn't squeeze another blade of
grass into the Alcazar, far less a soldier. And as for San Juan de
los Reyes, there are monks' cells with fifteen hussars sleeping
in them. The monastery where I'm taking you wasn't a bad
place, but three or four days ago, one of those special squadrons that are everywhere in the province suddenly appeared,
and we should be grateful that we managed to pile them into
the cloisters and leave the church free.'
    `Very well,' said the officer after a short silence, as though
resigning himself to the strange lodgings offered him by fate.
`At least if it rains, as seems likely from the look of those clouds,
we shall have a roof over our heads, which is something.'
    The conversation ended at this point, and the horsemen,
preceded by the guide, continued in silence till they arrived at
a small square on one side of which could be discerned the
dark silhouette of the monastery, with its Moorish tower, its
belfry and steeples, its pointed dome and the dark, uneven
ridges of its roof.
    `Here is your lodging', exclaimed the billeting sergeant to
the officer, who, having ordered his troops to halt, dismounted, took the lantern from the hands of the guide and
advanced in the direction indicated.
    As the monastery church had been stripped of its furnishings, the soldiers occupying the rest of the building had taken
the view that the doors were now of little use; and gradually,
one board at a time, they had ripped them out to serve as
firewood.
    Our young officer thus had no need to force locks or slide
back bolts in order to enter the church.
    By the light of the lantern, whose flickering beam wavered
among the dark shadows of the naves and cast on the wall the
monstrously enlarged shadow of the billeting sergeant who
went before him, he examined every corner of the church,
inspecting all the deserted chapels one after the other, then
finally, having satisfied himself as to the nature of the place, he
ordered his troops to dismount and organised them as best he
could, men and horses all together.

    As we have said, the church had been dismantled: from the
tall cornices of the altar there still fluttered the tattered remnants of the veil with which the monks had covered it before
abandoning the church; all along the naves there were altarpieces leaning against the wall, with the images removed from
their niches; in the choir, a beam of light revealed the strange
shapes of the larchwood pews; amongst the paving stones,
which were cracked and broken in several places,