the world had been sad since tuesday. there is a mingling of the fantastic and ordinary in all the descriptions including the swarms of crabs that invade pelayo and elisenda's home and the muddy sand of the beach that in the rainy grayness look ' like powdered light' it's in this strange, highly textured, dreamlike setting that the old winged man appears , a living myth who is nevertheless covered in lice and dressed in rags.