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And she laughed, with a glance at the innocent doña Pepa, who, there on the other bench, was for the hundredth time explaining to the Italian maid the prodigious miracles wrought by the patron of Alcira, and trying to persuade the "foreigner" to transfer her faith to that saint, and waste no more time on the second or third raters of Italy.
The peasant family laughed like mad, forgetting the disaster that had overtaken their home; Beppa opened her eyes wide, surprised at the elegant figure of the man, and the grace with which he pronounced the Italian verses. Even poor doña Pepa hitched around in her armchair and applauded. The barber, according to her, was the most charming devil in the world.
Doña Pepa had died, and Labarta, working off the tearful heaviness of his low spirits, bade her farewell in a long canticle. Ulysses ran his eyes over the enclosed newspaper clipping containing the last verses of the poet. The stanzas were in Castilian. A bad sign!... After that there could be no doubt that his end must be very near.
Much later, when seated at his godfather's table, he surprised the poet exchanging glances over his head with the housekeeper, and began to suspect that possibly Doña Pepa might be the inspiration of so much lachrymose and enthusiastic verse. But his great loyalty rebelled before such a supposition. No, no, it could not be possible; assuredly there must be another!
All that Ramel made went into his mistress's hands, and when he felt that his last hour was approaching, and that there was no hope of his recovery in full possession of his faculties and joy in his dull eyes he gave his name to Pepa, and made her his lawful widow, in the presence of all his friends.
And then after rehearsing that scandalous biography, Rafael's mother had come to the shocking effrontery with which her niece and Rafael were rousing the whole city; flaunting their wrong-doing in the face of the public; and turning her home, the respectable, irreproachable home of doña Pepa, into a den of vice, a brothel!
"Well ... there is auntie ..." Leonora resumed; and Rafael remembered that doña Pepa, remarking his assiduous visits to the Blue House, had thought her niece might be contemplating marriage. In the afternoon, Leonora explained, she had had a scene with her aunt. Doña Pepa had gone into town to confession, and on coming out of church had met doña Bernarda. Poor old woman!
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