“But, man. Hush!” exclaimed Manuel. “They might hear you.”
“And suppose they do?” retorted the neighbour. “Let them! They’re nothing but a gang of hypocrites. Who asks them to come here and pretend to be charitable souls? They come here to show off, to put on airs,—that’s what they come for. The mountebanks, the Jesuits! What in hell do they want to find out? That we live badly? That we’ve turned to swine? That we don’t attend to our children? That we get drunk? Very well. Let them give us their money and we’ll live better. But don’t let them come here with their certificates and their advice.”
The three visitors went into a hole a couple of metres square. On the floor, upon a litter of rags and straw, lay a dropsical woman with a swollen, silly face.
A young woman was seated in a chair, sewing by lamplight.
From the corridor Manuel could hear the conversation that was taking place inside.
The little old man with the white moustaches was asking in his merry voice what ailed the woman, and a neighbour who lived in an adjoining room was relating an endless tale of wretchedness and squalor.
The dropsical woman bore her woes with extraordinary resignation.
Misfortune battened upon her and she sank lower and lower until she reached this doleful position. She could not find a friendly hand, and her sole benefactors had been a butcher and his wife, former servants of hers in better days whom she had helped to set up in business. The butcher’s wife, who was also a moneylender, used to purchase cloaks and Manila handkerchiefs in the Rastro, and when there was anything to mend or to put into order she would bring it to the invalid’s daughter for repair.
This service the former servant rewarded by giving the daughter of her mistress a heap of bones, and, at times, when she was particularly pleased with a piece of work, by presenting her with the remainders of a meal.
“A hell of a generous lady, the butcher’s wife!” commented the mason, who had listened to the neighbour’s story.