[54] The reader will be pleased to guess the name of that insufferable insect which the Spaniards denominate Chinche, and with the English equivalent of which I am unwilling to offend his eyes. Happy, indeed, if he cannot guess; but then he cannot have seen either Seville or Granada, and one might almost encounter an acquaintance with the animal called Chinche rather than renounce them.
[55] Such of our readers as have visited Rome, will remember that enormous mound which is seen rising on the right hand as you leave the city, by the Porta Salaria, and is said to have been formed by the numberless fragments of pottery cast on the spot from time immemorial.
[56] Master.
[57] Here Rodaja spoke mockingly, an impure Portuguese, and not Spanish (olhay, homen, naon, digais, teno, sino tino). The spirit of the remark (as in some other passages omitted for that reason) consists in a play on words resembling each other in sound, though not in sense, and is necessarily lost in translation.
THE DECEITFUL MARRIAGE
From the Hospital of the Resurrection, which stands just beyond the Puerta del Campo, in Valladolid, there issued one day a soldier, who, by the excessive paleness of his countenance, and the weakness of his limbs, which obliged him to lean upon his sword, showed clearly to all who set eyes on him that, though the weather was not very warm, he must have sweated a good deal in the last few weeks. He had scarcely entered the gate of the city, with tottering steps, when he was accosted by an old friend who had not seen him for the last six months, and who approached the invalid, making signs of the cross as if he had seen a ghost. "What; is all this?" he cried; "do I, indeed, behold the Señor Alferez[[58]] Campuzano? Is it possible that I really see you in this country? Why, I thought you were in Flanders trailing a pike, instead of hobbling along with your sword for a walking-stick. How pale—how emaciated you look!"
"As to whether I am in this country or elsewhere, Sigñor Licentiate Peralta, the fact that you now see me is a sufficient answer," replied Campuzano; "as for your other questions, all I can tell you is, that I have just come out of that hospital, where I have been confined for a long time in a dreadful state of health, brought upon me by the conduct of a woman I was indiscreet enough to make my wife."
"You have been married, then?" said Peralta.
"Yes, Señor."