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"I have been told that you sing beautifully," said Rey to the girls. "Let Don Juan Tafetan sing." "I don't sing." "Nor I," said the second of the girls, offering the engineer some pieces of the skin of the orange she had just peeled. "Maria Juana, don't leave your sewing," said the eldest of the Troyas. "It is late, and the cassock must be finished to-night." "There is to be no work to-day.
"And to do away with the cultivation of garlic in Orbajosa to plant cotton or cinnamon trees in its stead?" Pepe could not help laughing at these absurdities. "All he has come for is to make a collection of pretty girls to take back with him to Madrid," said Tafetan. "Ah! I'll be very glad to go!" cried one. "I will take the three of you with me," said Pepe.
But the most curious thing about Don Juan Tafetan was his liking for pretty girls. He himself, in the days when he did not hide his baldness with half a dozen hairs plastered down with pomade, when he did not dye his mustache, when, in the freedom from care of youthful years, he walked with shoulders unstooped and head erect, had been a formidable Tenorio.
When Don Francisco Troya died a subscription was raised for them, but that did not last very long." "Poor girls! I imagine they are not models of virtue." "And why not? I do not believe what they say in the town about them." Once more the blinds opened. "Good-afternoon, girls!" cried Don Juan Tafetan to the three girls, who appeared, artistically grouped, at the window.
The conversation started by the Troyas displeased Pepe Rey not a little, dispelling the slight feeling of contentment which he had experienced at finding himself in such gay and communicative company. He could not, however, refrain from smiling when he saw Don Juan Tafetan take down a guitar and begin to play upon it with all the grace and skill of his youthful years.
At a moment when the three girls had run out to the balcony to see who was passing, Don Juan Tafetan approached Rey and whispered to him: "How pretty they are! Are they not? Poor things! It seems impossible that they should be so gay when it may be positively affirmed that they have not dined to-day." "Don Juan, Don Juan!" cried Pepilla.
Don Juan Tafetan and ourselves were the only persons who accompanied the funeral cortege. A little later, strange to say, the girls whom they call here the Troyas went to the field, and prayed for a long time beside the rustic tomb of the mathematician. Although this seemed a ridiculous piece of officiousness it touched me.
"And who is this Suspiritos who says such absurd things about me?" "Suspiritos is Suspiritos." "Girls," said Tafetan, with smiling countenance, "there goes the orange-vender. Call him; I want to invite you to eat oranges." One of the girls called the orange-vender.
"But what sort of people are they, then?" "Don't be afraid, Senor de Rey. The poor things are honest. Bah! Why, they live upon air, like the chameleons. Tell me, can any one who doesn't eat sin? The poor girls are virtuous enough. And even if they did sin, they fast enough to make up for it." "Let us go, then." A moment later Don Juan Tafetan and Pepe Rey were entering the parlor of the Troyas.
"About what?" "Set your mind at rest. I will make an excuse for you. You took a few glasses too much in the Casino, that was it, was it not? There you have the result of bad company. Don Juan Tafetan, the Troyas! This is horrible, frightful. Did you consider well?" "I considered every thing," responded Pepe, resolved not to enter into discussions with his aunt.
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