All this she did with inexpressible delight, going about the house with a light, almost youthful step, rejuvenated by the sweet maternity of love, and so happy that she forgot to scold the school-children, thinking only of shortening their tasks that she might be all the sooner with Segundo. There was in her affection much that was generous and spiritual, and her happiest moments were those in which, as they sat side by side at the window, his head resting on her shoulder, she listened, while her imagination transformed the pots of carnations and sweet basil into a virgin forest, to the verses which he recited in a well-modulated voice, verses that seemed to Leocadia celestial music.
The medal had its obverse side, however. The mornings were full of bitterness when Flores would come with an angry and frowning face, her woolen shawl twisted and wrinkled and falling over her eyes, to say in short, abrupt phrases:
"The eggs are all used; shall I get more? There is no sugar; which kind shall I buy—that dear loaf sugar that we bought last week? To-day I got coffee, two pounds of coffee, as if we had a gold mine. I won't buy any more cordial—you can go for it yourself—I won't."
"What are you talking about, Flores? What is the matter with you?"
"I say that if you like to give Ramon, the confectioner, twenty-four reals a bottle for anisette, when it is to be had for eight at the apothecary's, you can do so, but that I am not going to put the money in that thief's hand; he will be asking you five dollars a bottle for it next."
Leocadia would come out of her reverie with a sigh, and go to the bureau drawer for the money, not without thinking that Flores was only too right; her savings, her couple of thousand reals laid by for an emergency, must be almost gone; it was better not to examine into the condition of the purse; better put off annoyances as long as possible. God would provide. And she would scold the old woman with feigned anger.
"Go for the bottle; go—and don't make me angry. At eight the children will be here and I have my petticoat to iron yet. Make Minguitos his chocolate; you would be better employed in seeing that he has something to eat. And give him some cake."
"Yes. I'll give him some, I'll give him some. If I didn't give the poor child something——" grumbled the servant, who at Minguitos' name felt her anger increase. In the kitchen could be heard the furious knock given to the chocolate-pot to settle it on the fire and the angry sound of the mill, afterward, beating the chocolate into froth. Flores would enter the room of the deformed boy, who had not yet left his bed, and taking his hand in hers, say:
"Are you warm, child? I have brought you your chocolate; do you hear?"
"Will mamma give it to me?"
"I will give it to you."
"And mamma—what is she doing?"
"Ironing some petticoats."
The little humpback would fix his eyes on Flores, raising his head with difficulty from between the double arch of the breast and back. His eyes were deep set, with large pupils; on his mouth, with its prominent jaws, rested a melancholy and distorted smile. Throwing his arms around the neck of Flores, and putting his lips close to her ear:
"Did the other one come yesterday?" he asked.
"Yes, child, yes."
"Will he come again to-day?"
"He'll come. Of course he'll come! Stop talking, fillino, stop talking and take your chocolate. It's as you like it—thin and with froth."
"I don't think I have any appetite for it. Put it there beside me."
III.
In Vilamorta there was a Casino, a real Casino, small indeed, and shabby, besides, but with its billiard-table, bought at second-hand, and its boy, an old man of seventy, who once a year dusted and brushed the green cover. For the only reunions in the Casino of Vilamorta were those of the rats and the moths who assembled daily, to amuse themselves by eating away the woodwork. The chief centers of reunion were the two apothecaries' shops, that of Doña Eufrasia, fronting the Plaza and that of Agonde in the high street. Doña Eufrasia's shop, nestling in the shadowy corner of an archway, was dark; in the hours of meeting it was lighted by a smoky kerosene lamp; its furniture consisted of four grimy chairs and a bench.
From the street all that was to be seen were dark mass-cloaks, overcoats, broad-brimmed hats, two or three clerical tonsures that shone at a distance like metal clasps against the dark background of the shop. Agonde's shop, on the contrary, was brightly illuminated and gloried in the possession of six glass globes of brilliant coloring and fantastic effect, three rows of shelves laden with imposing and scientific-looking white porcelain jars bearing Latin inscriptions in black letters, a divan, and two leather-covered armchairs. The two contrasting shops were also antagonistic; they had declared war to the knife against each other.
Agonde's shop, liberal and enlightened in its opinions, said of the reactionary shop that it was a center of unending conspiracies, where El Cuartel Real and all the rebel proclamations had been read during the civil war, and where for the past five years ammunition-belts were being diligently prepared for a Carlist party that never took the field; and according to the reactionary shop, that of Agonde was the headquarters of the Freemasons; where lampoons were printed on a little handpress and where gambling was shamelessly carried on. The meetings in the reactionary shop broke up with religious punctuality at ten, in winter, and eleven in summer, while the liberal shop continued to cast on the sidewalk until midnight the light of its two bright lamps and the blue, red, and emerald-green reflections of its glass globes; for which reasons the members of the liberal reunion called those of the other party owls, while those of the reactionary clique gave their opponents the name of members of the Casino of the Gaming Table.
Segundo never put his foot over the threshold of the reactionary shop and, since the beginning of his acquaintance with Leocadia Otero, he had shunned that of Agonde also, for his vanity was wounded by the jests and gibes of the apothecary, who was noted for his waggish humor. One evening as Saturnino Agonde was crossing the Plaza of the Alamo at an unusually late hour—on his way the devil only knew whither—he had caught sight of Leocadia and Segundo seated at the window, and had heard the psalmody of the verses which the poet was declaiming. From that time Segundo had seen depicted on the countenance of Agonde, a practical man of a sanguine temperament, such contempt for sentimental trifling and for poetry that he instinctively avoided him as far as it was possible to do so. Occasionally, however, whenever he desired to read El Imparcial, to know what was going on, he would stop in at the shop for a few moments. He did so on the day after his conversation with the echo.
The meeting was very animated. Segundo's father was leaning back on the sofa with a newspaper resting on his knees; his brother-in-law, the notary Genday, Ramon, the confectioner, and Agonde were hotly disputing with him. At the further end of the shop Carmelo, the tobacconist, Don Fermin, alias Tropiezo, [1] the physician, the secretary of the Municipality and the Alcalde sat playing tresillo at a small table. When Segundo entered, he remarked something unusual in the air of his father and of the group that surrounded him, but certain that he would presently be told the cause, he silently dropped into an armchair, lighted a cigar, and took up the copy of El Imparcial that was lying on the counter.
[1] Trip.
"Well, the papers here say nothing, absolutely nothing, about it," exclaimed the confectioner.
From the tresillo table came the voice of the doctor confirming Ramon's doubts; the doctor, too, was of the opinion that the event in question could not happen without due notice of it being given in the papers.
"You would die rather than believe anything," replied Agonde. "I