“Yes, yes, Don Frederico,” joyfully cried Manuel, “ ‘Media vida es la candela; pan y vino, la otra media.’ ” (Half of life is the candle; bread and wine are the other half)
“And what necessity have you to dream of the future?” asked Maria. “Will the morrow make us the more love to-day? Let us occupy ourselves with to-day, so as not to render painful the day to come.”
“Man is a traveller,” replied Stein, “he must follow his route.”
“Certainly,” replied Maria, “man is a traveller; but if he arrives in a quarter where he finds himself well off, he would say, ‘We are well here, put up our tents.’ ”
“If you wish us to lose our evening by talking of travelling,” said Dolores, “we will believe that we have offended you, or that you are not pleased here.”
“Who speaks of travelling in the middle of December?” demanded Manuel. “Goodness of heaven! Do you not see what disasters there are every day on the sea? hear the singing of the wind! Will you embark in this weather, as you were embarked in the war of Navarre, for, as then, you would come out mortified and ruined.”
“Besides,” added Maria, “the invalid is not yet entirely cured.”
“Ah! there,” said Dolores, besieged by the children, “if you will not call off these creatures, the potatoes will not be cooked until the last judgment.”
The grandmother rolled the spinning-wheel to the corner, and called the little infants to her.
“We will not go,” they replied with one voice, “if you will not tell us a story.”