“I am not jealous of his kind,” said Momo, grumbling. “The proudest girl—”
“That is not so,” exclaimed the old woman; “she is a little wild, a little ferocious; one can see she has been educated alone, and allowed to have her own way by a father more gentle than a dove, although a little rough in manner, like all good sailors. But Momo cannot bear Marisalada, since one day when she called him Romo (flat-nosed), as indeed he is.”
At this moment a noise was heard; it was the commandant pursuing at a quick pace the thief Morrongo, who had deceived the vigilance of his master and ran off with the stock fish.
“My commandant,” cried out Manuel to him, laughing, “the sardine which the cat carries will not come to the dish except late or never, but I have here a partridge in exchange.”
Don Modesto seized the partridge, thanked him, took leave of the company, and went away, inveighing against cats.
During all this scene, Dolores had given the breast to her nursing infant; she tried to hush him to sleep, cradling him in her arms and singing to him:
“There high on Calvary, in their fresh retreats,
Woods of olives, wood of perfume meets;
A nightingale—four larks—whose breath,
Would warble forth a Saviour’s death.”
For those who suppress the circulation of poetry of the people, as the child crushes with its hand the feeblest butterfly, it would be difficult to say why larks and nightingales warble the death of Christ; why the swallow plucked out the thorns of his crown; why the rosemary is an object of veneration, in the belief that the Virgin dried the swaddling-clothes of the infant Jesus on a bush of this plant? Why, or rather how do they know that the willow is a tree of bad augury, since Judas hung himself on a branch of this tree? Why does no misfortune ever happen in a house if it has been perfumed with rosemary during Christmas eve? Why in the flower which is called the passion-flower are found all the instruments of the passion of Christ? In truth, there are no answers to these questions. The people do not possess them, nor demand them. These beliefs have accumulated like the vague sounds of distant music, without research into their origin, without analyzing their authenticity.
“But, Don Frederico,” said Maria, while Stein was occupied with reflections on the proceedings, “you have not told us how you find our village.”
“I have seen nothing,” replied Stein, “save only the chapel of our Lord of Good-Help.”