“And Don Frederico?” asked Dolores.
“You may wait for them until the Last Judgment,” said Momo. “Thanks to you, grandmother, I can boast of having made a famous journey.”
“What is it? what has happened?” asked at the same time both grandmother and mother.
“That which you will soon hear, so that you will admire the judgments of God, and who blesses you, inasmuch as He has permitted me to return safe and sound, thanks to the excellent legs he has given me.”
The old Maria and Dolores remained silent on hearing these words, symptoms of grave events.
“Speak, for the love of heaven; what has happened?” cried again both the women. “Do you not see that our souls are drawn out to a thread?”
“When I arrived in Madrid,” commenced Momo, “when I saw myself alone in the midst of this world, I was seized with vertigo. Each street appeared to me a soldier, every place a patrol. I entered into a public house with the paper of the commandant, and which was a paper that spoke. There I encountered a species of drunkard, who conducted me to the house indicated on the paper. The servants told me that their master and mistress were absent, and they were about to shut the door in my face; but they knew not, these imbeciles, whom they were dealing with. ‘Ha!’ said I to them, ‘pay attention to whom you are speaking, if you please. Do you know that it was at our house we rescued Don Frederico when he was dying, and that without us he would have been altogether dead?’ ”
“You said that, Momo!” exclaimed the grandmother, “one never speaks of these things. What mortification! what will they think of us? Remind one of a favor! who has ever seen the like?”
“Well! what? I ought not to have said it? Let’s see then! I spoke much stronger: I said it was my grandmother who had brought their mistress to our house when she was ill, running and crying herself hoarse on the rocks like a gull as she was. These profligates looked at each other, and mocked me; they told me I was mistaken, that their mistress was the daughter of a general of the army of Don Carlos. Daughter of a general! do you understand? Is there in the world a lie more shameful? to say that the good old Pedro is a general! old Pedro, who has never served the king! At last I told them that my commission was very pressing, and that what I wished was, to depart immediately, and lose sight of them, their masters, and Madrid. ‘Nicholas,’ then said a girl, who seemed to wish to be as shameless as her mistress, ‘conduct this peasant to the theatre, he may see the señora there.’ Remark well that she spoke of me, this viper’s tongue, as a peasant; and that she said señora, in speaking of this bad Gaviota. Can you believe that? It is what can only be seen in Madrid! It is confounding. Then the servant took his hat, and conducted me to a grand building, high, and constructed like a species of church. In lieu of tapers and candles, one only sees lamps which light up like suns. This large room was furnished all around with seats, upon which I have seen more than a thousand women seated all in fête dresses, stiff as sticks, and ranged like vials on an apothecary’s shelves. The men were so numerous that one might believe he saw an ant-hill. Jesus! from whence can so many Christians have come! ‘That is nothing,’ said I to myself, ‘it is the quantity of bread they must consume in this city of Madrid!’ But prepare yourself for the saddest. All this world was there—why? to hear the Gaviota sing!”
“I see nothing in all this to oblige you to come back so promptly and so amazed,” said the grandmother.