"Jacobito, my dear, will you be perishing of weakness, my child! Here I have some chocolate and spiral cakes which you like so much."
The lad rubbed his eyes, cast an excessively severe look at the chocolate which was so compassionately brought him, and made up his mind to take it, but not before he had gnashed his teeth in such a desperate fashion that the good Doña Adelaida was alarmed.
"Come, come, Jacobito, my son, don't grieve, don't be so much troubled, because you will be sure to fall sick.... There is no help for it.... Going to bed without taking anything was a piece of folly. Your father will come round all right, and finally everything will be settled as you want it. You certainly must have had a very bad night! You must not go on this way trifling with your stomach!... And now what are you going to do, my son? I am afraid for you with such a rash disposition as God has given you!"
When Jacobo heard this question, he for a moment suspended the hateful task of swallowing his chocolate, raised his angry face to the housekeeper, and shouted with concentrated fury:—
"What am I going to do!... You shall see, you shall see what I am going to do!"
And then he once more began to grit his teeth so terribly that Doña Adelaida was frightened out of her wits, and exclaimed:—
"Come now, calm yourself, calm yourself, Jacobito! You know that I was present when you were born, and that your sainted mother, who left you when you were a mere baby—poor woman!—charged me to have a watchful eye over you. If you should do anything desperate, you will kill me with sorrow.... Come, my son, tell me what you intend to do...."
The lad, pushing away the chocolate cup with an energetic movement, and rolling his eyes frenziedly, screamed rather than said:—
"Do you want to know what I am going to do?... Then I will tell you this very instant.... I am going to the factory, I am going to put on a blouse, I am going to daub my hands with grease, pull the candle moulds, and roast my face in front of the furnaces.... And when any stranger comes to the factory, the hands will be able to say: 'This man whom you see—dirty, nasty, ill-smelling—used to be a gentleman cadet, a cadet in the Military Academy!... Ah!" he said, concluding with a muffled voice, "Ah! no one knows, no one knows what Jacobo Utrilla is capable of!"
The housekeeper, who was expecting some desperate resolution, when she found that it was of this sort, could not refrain from a cry of joy.