Jav. Well nobody would think it—I mean nobody would think that you had ever had—anything—of that kind of infirmity—eh?
Tim. Well, I had it, I had it—they believed that it had left me an idiot——
Jav. Jesus, Mary, and Joseph!
Tim. But that devil of a woman who is not coming! She knew quite well that the Manzanilla was only for me, and she delights in mortifying me. She has a most perverse mind. And she was always the same; you don’t know what that woman has been!
Jav. Who? She who was here just now?
Tim. Exactly; that was one of the most magnificent women in all Andalusia. She was called Paca the Tarifeña.
Jav. Ah ha! who would have said so!
Tim. I should have said so, Juanito would have said so, Nemesio would have said so, and everybody would have said so. The Tarifeña! the girl from Tarifa!—she who acts in this house to-day as a servant or little better, twenty or thirty years ago commanded like a mistress. Afterwards, as always happens, she rambled about—rambled about—and farewell beauty, farewell grace, farewell magnificence. Old age, ugliness and misery, the three enemies—I’ll not say of the soul, but of the bodies of pretty girls, fed themselves upon the gay Tarifeña. Five or six years ago Juan got to know of it; he felt sorry, and he took her into this country house, as mistress of the keys or something—as a matter of form. In short, she is in service in the country seat; but she will not be of much service, for she was always very lively, but very lazy.
Jav. Yet, so beautiful?
Tim. A sun! But women break down early. We men preserve ourselves better. Who would say that I am fifty-eight years old?