noon
A strange sadness hovered over the building ; the damp , old building which once on a time had been a convent and now had become a school -- the building where the vast tedium of a science unable to free life from pain was added to the profound melancholy of a religion which thinks only of death . When Pascual Cañamares left his classroom , he asked Darlés to go and dine with him . Enrique accepted . It was just noon . Cañamares usually ate at a little tavern in the Plaza de Anton Martín . This was a gay little establishment , with high wooden counters , painted red . The two students sat down before a table , on which the hostess had spread a little tablecloth .