"Yes. And she asked me to look for you. But I scarcely knew where to find you."
This implied an effort which Catalina, as a matter of fact, had never made; nor had she any intention of looking for her sister. Her hope was that Nacha would never turn up, that she would thus be left in undisturbed possession of her mother's house. Soon after Nacha's disappearance, Cata had married a fellow quite inferior to her own station. Her mother had been much offended at the match and refused to see Cata, choosing to consider her as completely lost as Nacha. But when the husband died, her mother consented to have her return to live with her. The property left the two daughters consisted of a small house in Liniers and the furnishings of the pensión—some thirty thousand pesos all told.
Nacha found her sister much changed. Ten years earlier Cata had been a lively and not unattractive young person. Now she was slow in movement and heavy, and as she was very short, there was nothing graceful about her figure. In the old days, although they squabbled a great deal, the sisters had managed to get along together. But Cata's disposition had soured, though her ill-temper could not have been guessed from her fair-skinned and pretty face. Nacha noticed this change with alarm. How could she have become so bitter, and sharp-tongued, when she had once been so cheerful? What made her sister so envious and jealous, and full of petty meanness?
Nacha settled down in the house. She rarely went out, because she did not want to arouse suspicions in her sister. She helped with the multitudinous tasks of the household, and little by little took on all the work, as Cata skillfully disengaged herself from it. With the students and other men boarders Nacha's dealings were of the briefest. She barely spoke to them, so fearful was she of having Cata doubt her intentions of being an honest woman.
But it was written that Nacha must suffer in every relationship. Cata was constantly spying upon her. If Nacha stopped a moment in the patio to exchange a few words with a boarder, her sister would eye her suspiciously and take up a position somewhere near at hand, so as to observe her. Nacha could not discuss the most trifling matter with her sister without hearing allusions to her past life. If they happened to be commenting on some one of the boarders, such as, for instance, the desirability of giving the preference to one student instead of another, in the question of terms, Cata would grow impatient.
"Of course, you must be right. You have known so many men...."
Nacha might have borne such jibes in private. But her sister often got them off at table in front of everyone. Some of the boarders would laugh. Others felt secretly sorry for Nacha. Once, when Nacha did not eat what was on the plate before her, Cata asked:
"Doesn't this fare suit you? I suppose at the famous houses that you are used to living in, they had better cooks."
She was no more successful in finding happiness in other quarters. At first she had searched persistently for Monsalvat but had not obtained the slightest news of him. Torres or Ruiz de Castro could, she believed, have told her where he was, but she did not care to see either of these men. She remembered how Torres had lied to her, telling her that Monsalvat was in love with another woman. She had no reason to believe that he would not lie to her again. In Torres' opinion, as doubtless in Ruiz de Castro's, she was to blame for Monsalvat's situation; she was an enemy, to be kept at a distance! Nevertheless, as the months went by and her anxiety concerning him increased, she went one day to Torres' office, and with tears in her eyes asked for news of her friend. Torres told her the truth. Monsalvat had been very ill, had fled from the sanatorium, and no one had the slightest idea where he was. Nacha, however, believed that Torres was trying to put her off, and left after reproaching him for his past cruelty towards her.
One morning there arrived at the pensión a boarder who seemed startlingly out of place in that student boarding house. He was a corpulent fellow, heavy-shouldered, slow-moving, with enormous hands, and short fat fingers. His face was not altogether ugly: the features were large and firmly cut, and as immobile as though carved in oakwood. On the day of his arrival he wore riding breeches and boots. He spoke rarely, as though he feared his voice might sound too loud; but he burst into great shouts of laughter at the nonsensical stories with which the students regaled the dinner-table. Cata found out all there was to learn about his life. He was rich—owned a ranch in Pergamino—and had come to the pensión because it had been recommended to him by one of the students who worked as one of his hands during the holidays. Little did he suspect that the young man in question had congratulated himself on thus providing his fellow students with excellent first-hand material for their amusement! Cata, however, would not allow the slightest disrespect to this "native" of whom she made a protégé. By good-natured jokes at the beginning of their acquaintance, followed by maternal advice, Cata succeeded in bringing about certain changes in his attire, and modifying some of his rustic habits. The fellow was a good sort at bottom, and lent himself willingly to Cata's polishing, much to the amazement both of Nacha and the students who wondered what all this might portend.