He visited the market, the Calle de la Triperia, where the principal stores were; he observed the various aspects presented by the industry and commerce of the great city of Orbajosa, and, finding only new motives of weariness, he bent his steps in the direction of the Paseo de las Descalzas; but he saw there only a few stray dogs, for, owing to the disagreeable wind which prevailed, the usual promenaders had remained at home. He went to the apothecary’s, where various species of ruminant friends of progress, who chewed again and again the cud of the same endless theme, were accustomed to meet, but there he was still more bored. Finally, as he was passing the cathedral, he heard the strains of the organ and the beautiful chanting of the choir. He entered, knelt before the high altar, remembering the warnings which his aunt had given him about behaving with decorum in church; then visited a chapel, and was about to enter another when an acolyte, warden, or beadle approached him, and with the rudest manner and in the most discourteous tone said to him:
“His lordship says that you are to get out of the church.”
The engineer felt the blood rush to his face. He obeyed without a word. Turned out everywhere, either by superior authority or by his own tedium, he had no resource but to return to his aunt’s house, where he found waiting for him:
First, Uncle Licurgo, to announce a second lawsuit to him; second, Señor Don Cayetano, to read him another passage from his discourse on the “Genealogies of Orbajosa”; third, Caballuco, on some business which he had not disclosed; fourth, Doña Perfecta and her affectionate smile, for what will appear in the following chapter.
CHAPTER XIV
THE DISCORD CONTINUES TO INCREASE
A fresh attempt to see his cousin that evening failed, and Pepe Rey shut himself up in his room to write several letters, his mind preoccupied with one thought.
“To-night or to-morrow,” he said to himself, “this will end one way or another.”
When he was called to supper Doña Perfecta, who was already in the dining-room, went up to him and said, without preface: