“Father,” said he, with a malicious air, “there, is a man asleep in the chamber of brother Gabriel.”
“A man in my house!” cried Manuel, throwing away his chair. “Dolores, what does this mean?”
“Manuel, it is a poor invalid. Your mother would that we receive him: it was not my opinion: she insisted, what could I do?”
“It is well; but however she may be my mother, ought she for that to lodge here the first man that comes along?”
“No – he should be left to die at the door like a dog, is it not so?”
“But, my mother,” replied Manuel, “is my house a hospital?”
“No. It is the house of a Christian; and if you had been here you would have done as I did.”
“Oh! certainly not,” continued Manuel; “I would have put him on our ass and conducted him to the village, now there are no more convents.”
“We had not our ass here, and there was no one to take charge of this unfortunate man.”
“And if he is a robber?”
“Dying men do not rob.”
“And if his illness is long, who will take care of him?”
“They have just killed a fowl to make broth,” said Momo, “I saw the feathers in the court.”
“Have you lost your mind, mother!” cried Manuel furiously.
“Enough, enough,” said his mother, in a severe tone. “You ought to blush for shame to dare to quarrel with me because I have obeyed the law of God. If your father were still living, he would not believe that his son could refuse to open his door to the unfortunate, ill, without succor, and dying.”
Manuel bowed his head: there was a moment of silence.
“It is well, my mother,” he said, at last. “Forget that I have said any thing, and act according to your own judgment. We know that women are always right.”
Dolores breathed more freely.
“How good he is!” she said joyously to her mother-in-law.
“Could you doubt it?” she replied, smiling, to her daughter, whom she tenderly loved; and in rising to go and take her place at the couch of the invalid, she added:
“I have never doubted it, I who brought him into the world.”
And in passing near to Momo, she said to him:
“I already knew that you had a bad heart; but you have never proved it as you have to-day. I complain of you: you are wicked, and the wicked carry their own chastisement.”
“Old people are only good for sermonizing,” growled Momo, in casting a side look at his grandmother.
But he had scarcely pronounced this last word, when his mother, who had heard him, approached and applied a smart blow.
“That will teach you,” she said, “to be insolent to the mother of your father; towards a woman who is twice your mother.”
Momo began to cry, and took refuge at the bottom of the court, and vented his anger in bastinadoing the poor dog who had not offended him.
CHAPTER III
THE grandma and the brother Gabriel took the best care of the invalid; but they could not agree upon the method which should be adopted to cure him.
Maria, without having read Brown, recommended substantial soups, comforts, and tonics, because she conceived that Stein was debilitated and worn out.
Brother Gabriel, without ever having heard the name of Broussais pronounced, pleaded for refreshments and emollients, because, in his opinion, Stein had a brain fever, the blood heated and the skin hot.
Both were right, and with this double system, which blended the soups of the grandma with the lemonade of brother Gabriel, it happened that Stein recovered his life and his health the same day that the good woman killed the last fowl, and the brother divested the lemon-trees of their last fruit.
“Brother Gabriel,” said the grandma, “to which State corps do you think our invalid belongs? Is he military?”
“He must be military,” replied brother Gabriel, who, except in medical or horticultural discussions, had the habit of regarding the good woman as an oracle, and to be guided wholly by her opinion.
“If he were military,” continued the old woman, shaking her head, “he would be armed, and he is not armed. I found only a flute in his pocket. Then he is not military.”
“He cannot be military,” replied brother Gabriel.
“If he were a contrabandist?”
“It is possible he is a contrabandist,” said the good brother Gabriel.
“But no,” replied the old woman, “for to be a contrabandist, he should wear stuffs or jewelry, and he has nothing of these.”
“That is true, he cannot be a contrabandist,” affirmed brother Gabriel.
“See what are the titles of his books. Perhaps by that means we can discover what he is.”
The brother rose, took his horn spectacles, placed them on his nose, and the package of books in his hands, and approached the window which looked out on the grand court. His inspection of the books lasted a long time.
“Brother Gabriel,” asked the old woman, “have you forgotten to know how to read?”
“No – but I do not know these characters; I believe it is Hebrew.”
“Hebrew! Holy Virgin of Heaven, can he be a Jew?”
At that moment, Stein, awaking from a long lethargy, addressed him, and said in German:
“Mein Gott, wo bin ich? My God, where am I?”
The old woman sprang with one bound to the middle of the chamber; brother Gabriel let fall the books, and remained petrified after opening his eyes as large as his spectacles.
“In what language have you spoken?” she demanded.
“It must be Hebrew, like these books,” answered brother Gabriel. “Perhaps he is a Jew, as you said, good Maria.”
“God help us!” she cried. “But no, if he were a Jew, would we not have seen it on his back when we undressed him?”
“Good Maria,” replied the brother, “the holy father said that this belief which attributes to a Jew a tail at his back is nonsense, a piece of bad wit, and that the Jews laugh at it.”
“Brother Gabriel,” replied the good Mama Maria, “since this holy constitution, all is changed, all is metamorphosed. This clique, who govern to-day in place of the king, wish that nothing should remain of what formerly existed; it is for that they no longer permit the Jews to wear tails on their backs, although they always before carried them, as does the devil. If the holy father said to the contrary it is because it is obligatory, as they are obliged to say at Mass, ‘Constitutional king.’ ”
“That may be so,” said the monk.
“He is not a Jew,” pursued the old woman; “rather is he a Turk or a Moor, who has been shipwrecked on our coast.”
“A pirate of Morocco,” replied the good brother, “it may be.”
“But then he would wear a turban and yellow slippers, like the Moor I have seen thirty years ago, when I was in Cadiz. They called him the Moor Seylan. How handsome he was! But for me his beauty was nothing: he was not a Christian. After all, be he Jew or Moor let us relieve him.”
“Assist him, Jew or Christian,” repeated the brother. And they both approached the bed.
Stein had raised himself up in a sitting position, and regarded with astonishment all the objects by which