“I go to Madrid, and to seek the Gaviota again!” exclaimed Momo horrified. “Are you in your right senses, grandmother?”
“I am so much in my sound senses, that if you will not go, I will go myself. I have been to Cadiz without losing myself, and without any thing happening to me; it will be the same if I go to Madrid. My heart breaks when I hear this poor father calling on his child. But you, Momo, you have a bad heart, I say so to you with pain. And I do not know truly from whence you get this wickedness; it is neither from your father nor from your mother; but so it is: in every family there is a Judas.”
“The devil himself could not better torment a Christian to damn him,” murmured Momo. “And that is not the worst; you get this extravagance into your head, you push it just to its end, and as the only good result, I will be deprived of my arms and legs for an entire month.”
And Momo, to vent his anger, struck a heavy blow with his stick on the side of the poor Golondrina.
“Barbarian!” cried his grandmother, “why do you beat the poor animal?”
“Animals are made to be beaten,” replied Momo.
“Who has preached to you such a heresy?”
“Your misfortune, grandma, is, that you resemble the celestial vault, you protect everybody.”
“Yes, son, yes. And may it please God that I never witness a grief without sympathizing with it—that I may never be one of those people who listen to a complaint as if they were listening to the dropping of rain!”
“That which you tell me applies only to our neighbor, grandmother; but the animals, the devil!”