Part 4 (1/2)

Manuel's mother, as always, would be meditating upon heaven and h.e.l.l, giving little heed to the pettiness of this earth, and she could not s.h.i.+eld her son from such edifying spectacles. Petra's educational system consisted only of giving Manuel an occasional blow and of making him read prayer-books.

Petra imagined that she could see the traits of the machinist showing up in the boy, and this troubled her. She wished Manuel to be like her,--humble toward his superiors, respectful toward the priests...; but a fine place this was for learning to respect anything!

One morning, after the solemn ceremony had been celebrated in which all the women of the house issued into the corridor swinging their night service, there burst from Dona Violante's room a clamour of shouts, weeping, stamping and vociferation.

The landlady, the Biscayan and several of the boarders tiptoed into the corridor to pry. Inside the quarrellers must have realized that they were being spied upon, for they opened the door and the fray continued in low tones.

Manuel and the landlady's niece remained in the entry. They could hear Irene's sobbing and the scolding voices of Celia and Dona Violante.

At first they could not make out what was being said; but soon the three women forgot their determination to speak low and their voices rose in anger.

”Go! Go to the House of Mercy and have them rid you of that swelling!

Wretch!” cried Celia.

”Well, what of it?” retorted Irene. ”I'm caught, am I? I know it. What of it?”

Dona Violante opened the door to the entry furiously; Manuel and the landlady's niece scampered off, and the old lady came out in a patched flannel s.h.i.+ft and a weed kerchief tied about her ears, and began to pace to and fro, dragging her worn-out shoes from end to end of the corridor.

”The sow! Worse than a sow!” she muttered. ”Did any one ever see such a filthy creature!”

Manuel went off to the parlour, where the landlady and the Biscayan were chatting in low tones. The landlady's niece, dying with curiosity, questioned the two women with growing irritation:

”But why are they scolding Irene?”

The landlady and the Biscayan exchanged amicable glances and burst into laughter.

”Tell me,” cried the child insistently, clutching at her aunt's kerchief. ”What of it if she has that bundle? Who gave her that package?”

The landlady and the Biscayan could no longer restrain their guffaws, while the little girl stared avidly up at them, trying to make out the meaning of what she heard.

”Who gave her that package?” repeated the Biscayan between outbursts.

”My dear little girl, we really don't know who gave her that package.”

All the boarders repeated the niece's question with enthusiastic delight, and at every table discussion some wag would be sure to interrupt suddenly with:

”Now I see that you know who gave her that package.” The remark would be greeted with uproarious merriment.

Then, after a few days had pa.s.sed, there was rumour of a mysterious consultation held by Dona Violante's daughters with the wife of a barber on Jardines street,--a sort of provider of little angels for limbo; it was said that Irene returned from the conference in a coach, very pale, and that she had to be put at once to bed. Certainly the girl did not leave her room for more than a week and, when she appeared, she looked like a convalescent and the frowns had disappeared completely from the face of her mother and her grandmother.

”She looks like an infanticide,” said the priest when he saw her again, ”but she's prettier than ever.”

Whether any transgression had been committed, none could say with surety; soon everything was forgotten; a patron appeared for the girl, and he was, from all appearances, wealthy. In commemoration of so happy an event the boarders partic.i.p.ated in the treat. After the supper they drank cognac and brandy, the priest played the guitar, Irene danced _sevillanas_ with less grace than a bricklayer, as the landlady said; the Superman sang some _fados_ that he had learned in Portugal, and the Biscayan, not to be outdone, burst forth into some _malaguenas_ that might just as well have been a _cante flamenco_ or the Psalms of David.

Only the blond student with the eyes of steel abstained from the celebration; he was absorbed in his thoughts.

”And you, Roberto,” Celia said to him several times,--”don't you sing or do anything?”

”Not I,” he replied coldly.