"Only the ground that covers her knows what ailed her," answered the relative, "for Ana did not complain. If she had not been so thin, you might have drunk her; as yellow as a waxen flower, and so weak that a shadow could have knocked her down, no one would have thought that she was on her way to Holyfield."
"She died of a broken heart!" exclaimed an energetic-looking young matron; "all the world knows it; and because we have an alcalde that is afraid to strap his breeches to the work and cast out of town with the devil's sling these trulls of strangers who come among us to set up drinking-houses, and chouse married men, to their perdition and the ruins of their families!"
"Yes, yes, the alcaldes have eyes of fishes for all these things," said the relative of the deceased, "just as they have owls' eyes for some others. But they'll get their pay, woman; for though God consents, 'tis not for ever!"
"Yes," answered the first—"consents to the death of the good, and lets the bad live, and crow on. God reserves the justice of heaven for himself. The rod of earthly justice he puts into the hands of men; and a fine account they'll have to give of the way they use it! I'd like to break the one our alcalde carries upon his shoulders!"
"Neighbor," said an old woman, "you are more hasty than a spark from the forge; you attack like the bulls, with eyes shut. Think whom you are speaking of; and bear in mind that 'evil wounds heal, but evil fame kills.' Poor Ana was never well after her last confinement. Death does not come without a pretext: the summer pulled her down, and September finished her; for 'from friar to friar,[161] God be our guard!'"
"Of course, Aunt Maria," retorted the young woman, "it's quite proper for you, because you are aunt to Juan Garcia, and cousin to the alcalde, to say so; for 'with reason or without it, aid us God and our kin.' But I tell you that my José is not to set his foot inside of La Leona's[162] gin-shop; and I'll see that he don't! A man may be as honest as Job, but in 'the house of the soap-maker he that doesn't fall slips.' And say what you please, you who are a widow, with the coolness of age in your veins, I shall not go back of what I have said. 'He that jumps straight, falls on his feet,' and I say, and resay it: they ought to flay alive the good-for-nothing calamary of a she-sergeant, with her sentry-box figure, and face darker than an oil-skin, so full of pock-marks that it looks as if she had fallen into a bed of chick-peas, and more hair on her lip than a grenadier! Remember the proverb, 'Salute the bearded woman at a distance!'"
"And her children," said the mourner—"little imps that she keeps so greasy and neglected! They look like a nest of calamaries."
"But she thinks them little suns," added another.
"Ya!" exclaimed the first who had spoken; "said the black beetle to her young ones, 'Come hither, my flowers!' and the owl calls hers 'drops of gold.' Who ever saw such a thing, sirs," she continued, growing excited—"who ever saw anything so wicked as to dupe a married man, the father of children, ruin him, pull down his house, and murder his wife by inches! And this is known and permitted! I tell you, such a thing sinks deep!"
"Yes, it is worse than stabbing with a knife," exclaimed one woman.