On the third day of rain they had killed so many crabs inside the house that Pelayo had to cross his drenched courtyard and throw them into the sea, because the newborn child had a temperature all night and they thought it wad due to the stench
The world had been sad since Tuesday. Sea and sky were were a single ash-gray thing and the sands of the beach. The light was so weak at noon that when Pelayo was coming back to the house after throwing away the crabs, it was hard for him for him to see what it was moving and groaning, in the rear of the courtyard.
He had to go very close to see that it was an old man, a very old man, lying face down in the mud , who, in spite of his tremendous efforts, couldn't get up, impeded by his normal wings.
Frightened by that nightmare, Pelayo ran to get Elisenda, his wife, who was putting compresses on the sick child, and he took her to the rear of the courtyard.
On the following day, everyone knew that a flesh-and-blood angel was held captive in Pelayo's house. Pelayo watched over all afternoon from the kitchen, armed with his bailiff's club, and before going to bed, he dragged him out of the mud and locked him up with the hens in the wire chicken coop.