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Homage to Barcelona - Demons & Dragons

the nineteenth century when there was desperate poverty; the years after the First World War when there was enormous unem-ployment and unrest; and the years of the Civil War, when the Anarchists held the city centre.

That Sunday night the Catalans were in the Plac¸a deSant Jaume too, dancing to a band playing Viennese waltzes. There were more old people here; each generation seemed to have found its level on the last night of the festival. In the Plac¸a del Rei around the corner the music was more modern and cool, and this was where the fashionable people were, the people who would later move on to the fast-lane nightclubs, now standing in the fourteenth-century square swaying slightly to the music.

A bar on the corner, an old bar with upstairs windows over-looking the square, was half-empty now, although it was a hot night and the square outside was full. Catalans and the citizens of Barcelona in general have very little interest in alcohol, will seldom have more than one drink in a bar, and will often nurse a Coca-Cola for an entire evening.

All over the city the music went on. On Friday night 180,000 people had gone to the free rock concert on Montjuic and tonight there were 100,000 people up there again; earlier, an estimated 100,000 had watched the dragons and devils on the correfoc, and the same number of children had taken part in various events in the city over the weekend, all the events being paid for by the Town Hall. There had been no arrests, no fights. The city was stable now, at peace. The squares were full of people as midnight approached. Barcelona was having a good time.

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