"
"All right, then. Let them give two duros to man's industry and kill
it."
The woman spoke very phlegmatically and sententiously. Her calm manner
harmonized perfectly with her huge person, which was as thick and
rigid as a tree-trunk; her face was fleshy and of stolid features, her
wrinkles deep; pouches of loose flesh sagged beneath her eyes; on her
head she wore a black kerchief, tightly knotted around her temples.
Senora Jacoba--that was her name--was a woman who probably felt
neither heat nor cold; summer and winter she spent the dead hours
seated by her vegetable stand at the Puerta de Moros; if she sold a
head of lettuce between sunrise and sunset, it was a great deal.
After eating, some of the shoemaker's family went off to the courtyard
for their siesta, while others remained in the shop.
Vidal, the man's younger son, sprawled out in the patio beside Manuel,
and having inquired into the cause of the bumps that stood out on his
cousin's forehead, asked:
"Have you ever been on this street before?"
"I? No."
"We have great times around here."
"You do, eh?"
"I should say so. Haven't you a girl?"
"I? No."
"Well, there are lots of girls 'round here that would like to have a
fellow."
"Really?"
"Yes, sir! Over where we live there's a very pretty little thing, a
friend of my girl.
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