"Ah!"
Everybody kept still and looked at the floor as one does when paying a visit of condolence. Nothing could be heard in the room but the increasingly poignant sobs of the outraged wife. The situation was trying, agonizing in the highest degree. Fortunately Doña Amparo had the happy inspiration to faint away, and this accident introduced an element of variety into the scene which we immediately improved. We ran to her aid. We opened flasks with shining stoppers. The dining-room was filled with the penetrating fragrances of the apothecary's shop. Tears, embraces, sighs, kisses. At last her equilibrium was restored, and she came to herself.
I thought I would lose my head in the odor of ether; but before this could happen Martí drew me from the room, and carried me off to his office.
"Did you ever see such a wretched affair?" he cried, shaking his head in immense annoyance.
"But what is it all?"
"Nothing; the other night he won three or four thousand pesetas at play, and he has gone gayly off to spend them with an actress."
"What madness! But he will come back!"
"I believe you; he'll come back when he has run through with every dollar, as he did the other time."
"The other time?"
"Yes; three or four years ago he eloped with a circus-rider. But then he carried off more money than this time."