One night at the beginning of April he went home soon after eleven. The door was opened by an under-servant.
“Where is Felipe? Why does he not let me in as usual?” asked the master.
“Felipe is not in the house, Sir.”
“Where is he then?”
“My mistress has dismissed him.”
“What for? Was there anything wrong?”
“She was angry because he would not go to confess, Sir.”
“You do then?”
“Yes, Señor; once a month. My mistress takes care of that; if we do not bring home a certificate she turns us into the street. But Ventura, the coachman, has a friend who is a sacristan and who can get him as many as he wants and so he satisfies my mistress who believes he goes to confess. If it were not for your Honour, Sir, my wife and me, we should have been off long ago from this place where so much is expected and there is never a moment’s peace. When a poor man has been hard at work all the week and Sunday afternoon comes round what a terrible thing it is that he cannot be allowed to go for a walk, but must needs be packed off to hear a sermon. My wife says she can stand it no longer! And then look at the scarecrow she has brought into the house. This morning when she sent off Felipe she said she should put some one in his place at once. I thought she would promote my brother Ramón: but no, she wrote a letter to the priests at San Prudencio, and before we could turn round, in came a fellow that looks like a sacristan, fat, red-faced and clean-shaved, with coat tails down to the ground, a low-crowned black hat, a sanctimonious, spiteful face and the manners of neither a man nor a woman. My mistress told me that I was to take Felipe’s place and the porter was to take mine and that this new gentleman—Pomares is his name—was to be the new porter and a sort of steward and superintendent of the rest of us.”