"Who is it? Who is it?" asked the audience and the dignitaries of the stage of one another.
"It is Perinolo's son."
"Who?"
"Perinolo's son. Perinolo's son."
These words were repeated in a low tone all over the theatre.
Perinolo's son was a pale youth with large, prominent eyes. Nothing else was visible in the semi-darkness of the place, which was fortunate for him, for a good light would have revealed the crumpled front of his shirt and the disheveled locks of his hair, and the holes in his boots and his threadbare trousers would have been seen through the balustrade of the box. But all the people of Sarrio knew him from meeting him constantly in the street or at the cafés. I must say that, in spite of his appearance, he was a lad of gentle mien and disposition.
His father, Señor Maria el Perinolo, the boot-maker in the town, was quite an institution. He was one of the few old artisans who in the middle of the century still retained the jacket and large hat of former times. He was a Carlist fanatic, a member of all the religious confraternities; he told his beads in the afternoon as the bell from the Church of St. Andrew rang for prayer; accompanied by several womenfolk, he joined in the processions of Holy Week with its disciplinary garb and a crown of thorns, and he had under his care the Chapel of the Nazarene, in the Calle de Atras. This poor saint, who had never given anybody cause to speak against him (supreme testimony of honesty among the lower classes), brought up his own son, Sinforoso, and two others in the holy fear of God, and the strap, scourgings, penances on his knees, days on bread and water, ear-pullings, and blows, constituted the tender memories of Sinforoso's childhood.
As he grew from boyhood and youth he showed signs of having profited by his father's teaching. Perinolo made up his mind that the lad's vocation was not in the direction of boot-making, but of becoming a pillar of the Romish Church. Means, were, however, wanting to send him to the seminary at Lancia, so Don Melchor de las Cuevas, Don Rudesindo, and the parish priest spontaneously came to his assistance, and allowed the lad three pesetas a day until he could intone the mass. But at the end of the second year of theology these gentlemen received from the seminarist an elegantly expressed letter in which he stated that he did not feel called by God to an ecclesiastical career, and that rather than be a bad priest he would learn his father's business, or go to America; and it ended by entreating in fervent terms that he might be allowed to exchange theology for the law, for which he had a predilection, so as to modify the disappointment of his father. His benefactors acceded to the request, and Sinforoso finally became a pillar of the state instead of the church, as Perinolo had wished.
While pursuing his studies with marks of commendation from the beginning to the close, he contributed several articles to the daily papers, by which achievement he considered himself entitled to let his hair grow and wear eye-glasses. So that the licentiate returned to Sarrio with an aureole of glory befitting one who had won his spurs and still waged war in the press of the day. He attached himself to the most advanced Liberal party, which alienated him from his people. His father was greatly enraged with him, and it was only through his mother's intercession that he let him remain in the house. He never spoke to him or gave him a centime for his expenses, but merely let him sleep under his roof and partake of their scanty fare. At the end of a few months the youth's boots became shabby, and his clothes looked wretched; but the man of letters carried it off by the reserve and gravity of his physiognomy and the self-importance of his deportment. He spent the morning reading in bed, and the afternoon and evening in loud discussions at the café of what he read in the morning. The townfolk did not like him, but they respected his talents and dignity.
"Who asked permission to speak?" queried Don Rosendo.