Now that the reader knows what had passed at Villamar, let us follow with him the thread of actualities.
One day, Ramon sang, accompanying himself on the guitar. It was not a song of the country, but a melancholy romance entitled Atala. It was a frightful thing to hear the trills, the cadences, the flourishes of all sorts, which he resorted to, to render the music unnatural. Don Modesto, moved by a sentiment of gratitude towards the man who shaved him for nothing, alone listened to Ramon’s singing, when suddenly the door of the back shop was opened wide, and there was seen going out a woman, with an infant in her arms, and another who followed her weeping. This woman, pale, meagre, and of coarse manners, was dressed in a robe of light muslin, and an old barege shawl, and her long hair escaped from her comb, descending in disorder to her feet. Her feet were dressed in satin shoes, worn down at the heels. And she wore in her ears large gold ear-rings.
“Hush! hush! Ramon,” she cried in a coarse voice, “do not stun my ears. I would rather prefer to hear the croaking of all the ravens on the coast, and the mewing of all the cats in the village, than to hear this mutilation of serious music. I have already told you to sing only the songs of the country. Your voice is sufficiently flexible, and it is always good for that; but there is not a living soul who could support your pretensions to the graces of an artist. I tell you this, and you know if I am competent or not to express an opinion. You so bore me with your stupid vocalization, that, if you continue it, I will quit this house, never to return to it. Be silent!” she added, striking the infant, who had begun to cry, “you bray like your father.”
“Go, then, by all the saints!” replied the barber, wounded in what his amour propre cherished as most dear. “Go, run away, and never return until I recall you: in this way you will run for a long time without stopping.”
“Dare you speak to me thus, you beardless chin!—to me, whom the grandees of Spain, ambassadors, and the entire court recall to their memory.”
“If all the world saw you to-day, be sure they would not desire to listen to you, or think of you.”
“Why have I married this booby, who, after having spent the allowance I had from the duke, now insults me—me, the celebrated Maria Santalo, who made such a noise in the world?”
“It will be better for you if you make no more,” said Ramon.
At these words the woman sprang upon her husband, who, filled with fear, had not time to save himself.
In going out he ran against a new personage, whom he upset. Hardly had Maria perceived the ludicrous rencontre when her anger gave place to the loudest laughter.