Maximina was touched, and consoled her by saying that they were not going to leave Madrid, and that they could easily see each other.
The marvellous baby, whose rapid progress of late had reached the truly incredible point of raising his hands to heaven whenever he heard her sing the song—
Santa María, qué mala está mi tía!
was the object of many tender embraces on the part of the domestics, who between them squeezed him almost to death.
When they were fairly settled, Miguel naturally set himself about finding some occupation, so as to earn enough for living, though in a very modest manner. Politics were detestable to him; the same was true of journalism, although it was the only profession to which he was accustomed. He knew that there were going to be a few competitive offices vacant in the Council of State, and he made up his mind that he would try for one of them. In his love for his wife and baby, and in his sense of duty which had never entirely abandoned him, and which, amid his misfortunes, now arose in full strength in his mind, he found the stimulus and power not only to devote himself zealously to studies that were distasteful to him, but also to conquer his pride.
A young man who had shone in Madrid society, who had been the editor-in-chief of a newspaper and within a hair's breath of being deputy, could not help feeling some mortification in passing through a public examination for a place worth only twelve or fourteen thousand reals. He devoted himself ardently to the study of administrative law with such zeal that he hardly went out of the house, except a little while in the evening to rest his brain.
The very little money that they had left he spent with exceeding care so that it might hold out until the time of the competition, which was to be held after the summer, toward October or November.
Maximina in this respect was a model. Not only did she spend nothing on her person, for she had clothes enough, but also in the household expenses she performed prodigies of skill to reduce them to the smallest terms. Miguel was grieved, and almost shed tears secretly when he saw her making soap herself because it would be a few centimos cheaper than at the shop, and many times taking charge of the kitchen while Juana was gone to a distant store where potatoes were a real cheaper, and ironing the nicer linen herself, etc.
But she seemed happy; perhaps happier than when they were in the midst of opulence. The luxuriance of their apartment on the Plaza de Santa Ana had a certain depressing influence upon her. As she never dusted or arranged the furniture herself, they seemed to her hardly to be hers. Now everything was the opposite; she had put them in their places after serious perplexities; she dusted them every day, she swept and brushed the carpet, she polished with stag-horn powder all the metal arrangements, she kept the window in her husband's room carefully washed; in fact, she took entire charge of all the details of the household.
It was for Miguel a pleasure not free from melancholy to see her mornings, with a silk handkerchief wrapped around her head in the Biscaïan manner and in a woollen apron, gracefully waving the feather duster and lightly humming some sentimental zórcico of her country.