"That is right, my son, that is right! That is the best way of heaping coals of fire on the heads of your father and brother, who have been pestering me to death by saying that you were of no use, that you were a lazybones...."
"But before doing that," interrupted Jacobo, extending both hands as though he were trying to hold back the avalanche which was about to fall, "it is necessary that one of us two perish!"
"Merciful Virgin!" exclaimed Doña Adelaida. "Who is going to perish, Jacobito? For Heaven's sake, don't go lose your mind! Do you want your father to die?"
"Not him, señora, not him! I refer to my algebra professor, with whom this afternoon or to-morrow at the very latest, I am going to fight a duel!"
"And what has the algebra professor done to you? Made you fail in your examination? Now if you had studied, as your father told you to do, this would not have happened."
"Señora," cried Jacobo, in a stentorian voice so fiendish that Doña Adelaida in affright took a step or two backward, "don't you dare to speak about what you do not understand! I cannot get over my vexation that I ever had anything to do with algebra. What the professor did was to sneer at me, and this, my father's son cannot put up with! Do you understand?"
"Come, calm yourself, Jacobito; you have been very much disturbed since yesterday. Perhaps it is not as bad as you think. It may be that this gentleman did not sneer at you on purpose."
"He may not have done it intentionally, but the fact is, he insulted me, and I will not stand it; I never have yet, and I never intend to let any one insult me with impunity. You know very well that in this respect I am a peculiar man."
"I know it, Jacobito; you have the same disposition as your grandfather (peace to his soul!). What a man he was! He was as quick to flare up as gunpowder! Just think; one time when he was shaving, he heard a cry in the court; he turned his head so suddenly that he gave himself a tremendous cut in the nose.... But it is necessary, my son, to have self-restraint, and repress one's nature a little, if one would live in this world. It is my idea that if this professor made sport of you, what you ought to do is to make sport of him!"
With slight variations, such was the advice that in the early days of Greece, Minerva, the goddess of the glorious eyes, gave the divine Achilles in his famous quarrel with Agamemnon, the son of Atreus.