“Old!” exclaimed Maria, “what nonsense! you have scarcely attained to thirty years. Come—you reason like the leg of a table, Don Frederico.”
“What could I desire more,” replied Stein, “than to taste with an innocent young girl the sweet and holy felicity of domestic life, which is the only true, the only perfect, the only real, because it is that which God has taught us. But, good Maria, she cannot love me.”
“That is too strong; she has a very delicate taste, by my faith, she who would be ashamed of you! Say not to the contrary; you have the air of joking. Yes, the wife that you love will be the happiest in the whole world.”
“Do you believe so, Maria?”
“I believe it as I believe my salvation; and she who, in such a case, does not esteem herself happy, should be crucified alive.”
The following day, when Marisalada came, she met, on entering the court, face to face with Momo, who was seated on a stone of the mill, breakfasting on bread and sardines.
“You here already, Gaviota!” this was the sweet salutation Momo gave her; “if this continues, we will find you one day in our soup. You have then nothing to do at home?”
“I abandon all,” replied Marisalada, “to come and contemplate your face, which enchants me, and thine ears, which excite the envy of Golondrina, thine ass.”
In so saying she took hold of Momo’s ears, and pulled them.
The young girl had the chance at the first roar which Momo made with all the strength of his big lungs, for a mouthful of bread and sardines had stuck in his throat, and occasioned such a fit of coughing, that the Gaviota, light as a fawn, escaped the talons of the vulture.