“If I were in your place,” she continued, in order to conciliate Joanna, “I should give him the best part of the stew. A fine thing to have scruples of conscience on account of one’s masters! They would see one die with as little pity as they would a dog.” And with a bitter smile which disclosed to view her yellow teeth, she added,—
“She told me not to be long at the doctor’s, which is as much as to say, ‘Get well soon, or go to the devil!’”
She sighed profoundly, and took up a broom from a corner of the kitchen.
“Ah, Senhora Joanna, the lot of the poor is a hard one! They are beasts of burden,—nothing more!”
She went downstairs and began to sweep the corridor, brushing the dust noisily towards the landing. She had passed a bad night. In her room just under the roof she had felt as if she were suffocating; and the smell of the bricks heated by the sun had given her palpitations of the heart ever since the beginning of the summer. She drew her breath with difficulty. Yesterday she had been unable to keep anything on her stomach during the day 5 and to-day she had risen at six, and had not had a moment’s rest since then, dusting and putting things in order, notwithstanding the pain in her side, and a nauseated stomach. She had opened the door leading from the stairs, and continued to sweep, grumbling, and striking the broom against the banisters.
“Is the senhora at home?” asked a voice behind her.
She turned around quickly, and saw before her on the landing a gentleman with a dark complexion, and a mustache curling up at the ends, his hat pulled slightly over his brows, and a flower in his buttonhole.
“The senhora is going out,” said Juliana. “If the gentleman wishes to give me his name—”
“Say I wish to see her on business,” he replied,—“on business relating to mines.”
One of his hands was concealed in the pocket of his light striped trousers, and with the other, in which he held a cane, he was absently striking the plaster of the wall.