The house consisted of three rooms and a loft. The first of these served not only as dining-room and drawing-room, but also as the bedroom of the two elders; in the second slept the two young ladies, already grown-up women, and named La Mariuca and La Pepina. Tanasio, the eldest of all, stored himself in the garret, and Celipin, the youngest of the family and nearly twelve years old, had a bed in the kitchen—the innermost room, the dingiest, dampest and least habitable of the three rooms which composed the mansion of the Centenos.
Nela, during the many years of her residence there, had inhabited various nooks and corners, going from one to another, according to the exigencies of the moment, to make way for the thousand objects which served only to curtail the last scanty accommodation left for human beings. On some occasion—the precise facts are unknown to history—Tanasio, whose feet were as crippled as his brain, and who devoted himself to the manufacture of large hampers made of hazel rods, had placed in the kitchen a pile of at least half a dozen of these bulky trophies of his art. Marianela looked on, casting her eyes sadly around, and finding no corner left into which to creep; but the predicament itself inspired her with a happy idea, which she at once acted upon. She simply got into one of the baskets, and there passed the night in sound and blissful sleep. In fact, it was comfortable enough, and when it was cold she pulled another basket on the top. From that time, so long as there were garrotes (a local name for these coarse, open baskets) to be found, she never was at a loss for a crib, and the others would say of the child: "She sleeps like a jewel."
During meals, in the midst of a noisy discussion on the morning's work, a voice would suddenly say in rough tones: "Here!" and Nela would have a plate given her by one of the family, big or small, and would seat herself against the big chest to eat what she had got, in silence. But towards the end of the meal sometimes the master's harsh bleating voice would be lifted up saying, with a perfunctory air of benevolence: "Mother, you have given poor Nela nothing." And then Señana, a compound name abbreviated from Señora Ana, would move her head about as if trying to see some minute and remote object between the bodies of her own children, saying as she did so: "What, are you there? I thought you had stayed at Aldeacorba."
At night, after supper, the family repeated the Paternoster over their beads and then, staggering like bacchantes, and rubbing their eyes with their fists, Mariuca and Pepina went to their beds, which were snug and comfortable and covered with patchwork quilts. In a few minutes a duet of contralto snoring was heard which lasted without intermission till morning dawned. Tanasio went up to the higher regions and Celipin curled himself round on a heap of rags, not far from the basket into which Nela disappeared from sight.
The family thus being disposed of, the parents sat up for a while in the living-room, and while Centeno, seating himself with a stretch close to the little table and taking up a newspaper, made a series of grimaces to convey his bold intention of reading it, his wife took a stocking full of money out of the family chest, and after counting it and adding or taking out a few pieces, carefully restored it to its place. Then she took out sundry paper packets containing gold pieces and transferred some from one parcel to another. Meanwhile such remarks as these were made. "Mariuca's petticoat cost thirty-two reales. I gave Tanasio the six reales he had to pay. We only want eleven duros [2] to make up the five hundred."
Or, on the other hand:
"The deputies agreed."—"Yesterday a conference was held, etc...."
Señana's fingers did her sums, while her husband's forefinger passed doubtfully and waveringly along the lines, to guide his eye and mind through the labyrinth of letters. And these sentences gradually died away into monosyllables; one yawned, then the other, and at last all sunk into silence, after extinguishing the lamp by which the overseer of the mules had been cultivating his mind.