“Even the common folk,” replied Jesús jestingly, recalling a zarzuela refrain, “has its tender heart.”
The gentlemen from La Conferencia de Paul, after having heard so moving an account, gave three food tickets to the dropsical woman and left the room.
“Now the woman’s happy,” muttered Jesús, ironically. “She was going to die tomorrow and now she can last until the day after. What more does she want?”
“I should say,” chimed the mason.
The secretary,—the fellow burdened with so many documents, recalled a case similar to that of the dropsical woman, and he declared that it was most curious and extremely interesting.
As the three gentlemen were turning down one corridor to go into another, an old lady approached them, addressing them as “Your grace,” and asking them to accompany her. She led the way with a candle to a garret, or, more exactly speaking, a dark nook beneath a staircase. On a heap of rags, wrapped in a frayed cloak, lay an emaciated, filthy little girl, her face dark and wan, her eyes black, shy and glittering. At her side slept a little boy of two or three.
“I wish Your grace would place this little girl in an asylum,” said the old woman. “She’s an orphan; her mother, who—begging your pardon—did not lead a very good life, died here. She’s planted herself in this hole and nobody can make her stir. She steals eggs, bread, whatever she can lay her hands upon, sometimes in one house, sometimes in another, so that she can feed the baby. I wish you could see that she’s placed in an asylum.”
The little girl stared out of her large eyes, frightened at sight of the three gentlemen, and seized the infant by the hand.
“This little girl,” declared the secretary from behind his bundle of documents, “has a genuinely curious affection for her tiny brother, and I am not sure that it would not be cruel to separate them.”
“An asylum would be better,” insisted the old woman.