EL BULÍN
DE LA CALLE
AYACUCHO.

The little room on Ayacucho Street that I rented in my streetwise days, the room where the gang would gather to gamble through the night, the room where so many lads, in a rough stretch of life, found bread and a bed— out of its mind, it seems to weep.

The Primus stove never let me down with its load of spirits, and whenever there was hot water, mate reigned supreme. There was always a guitar, well strung and polished, and that fellow with the nasal voice who fancied himself a singer.

The little room on Ayacucho Street has become shabby and forlorn; you no longer hear the dance-hall singer, full of himself, singing his inspiration. The kettle no longer boils on the Primus that brought the happy gang together, and the fellow with the roguish cheer has run dry from so much weeping.

Everything was a memory that made my life bitter; so I spent my days wretched, rough and sad.

The lads drifted away when they saw me so distraught, and I stayed in the nest, brooding over my grief.

Shabby little room, tucked away at the back of that tenement, without carpets, luxury or shine, how many happy days I spent there, warmed by the love of a girl who was mine, tender and sincere!... And one bleak winter night, she flew away to heaven!