Petra had finished scouring and her drowsiness, the heat and fatigue had doubtless overcome her. She could be made out dimly in the light of the small lamp that hung by the hearth. She was a thin, scrawny woman, flat-chested, with lean arms, big red hands and skin of greyish hue. She slept seated upon a chair with her mouth open; her breathing was short and laboured.
At the strokes of the corridor clock she suddenly awoke; she shut the window, through which came a nauseating, stable-like odour from the milk-dairy on the ground-floor; she folded the clothes and left with a pile of dishes, depositing them upon the dining-room table; then she laid away in a closet the table-ware, the tablecloth and the left-over bread; she took down the lamp and entered the room in the balcony of which the landlady sat sleeping.
"Señora, señora!" she called, several times.
"Eh? What is it?" murmured Doña Casiana drowsily.
"Perhaps you wish something?"
"No, nothing. Oh, yes! Tell the baker tomorrow that I'll pay him the coming Monday."
"Very well. Good-night."
The servant was leaving the room, when the balconies of the house across the way lighted up. They opened wide and soon there came the strains of a tender prelude from a guitar.
"Petra! Petra!" cried Doña Casiana. "Come here. Eh? Over in that
Isabel's house … You can tell they have visitors."
The domestic went to the balcony and gazed indifferently at the house opposite.