Jesús’s sister welcomed most enthusiastically the two orphans befriended by the compositor on the day before Christmas; La Salvadora and the tiny tot became at once part of the family.
La Salvadora was of a shy, yet despotic disposition; she was so fond of cleaning, sweeping, dusting and shaking that she provoked Jesús and Manuel. She loved to arrange and put things in order; she was as energetic as she was thin. She brought their meals to Jesús and to Manuel, because they spent too much at the tavern; at noon she would be off for the printing-shop with a basket of food that was bulkier than herself. With the savings of three months La Fea and La Salvadora purchased a new sewing-machine at an instalment house.
“That girl isn’t going to let us live in peace,” said Jesús.
The typesetter’s life had returned to normal. He no longer got drunk. Yet despite the care lavished upon him by his sister and La Salvadora, he became daily more sombre and glum.
One winter’s evening when he had received his pay and was leaving the shop, Jesús asked Manuel:
“See here. Aren’t you tired of working?”
“Pse!”
“Aren’t you bored stiff by this routine, monotonous existence?”
“Well, what are you going to do about it?”