United States or Singapore ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
And Tonet stayed all warm and cosy at home with her, the pair of them laughing to see what a stupid, self-satisfied idiot you were! Tonet didn't sleep in this house after you sailed. And he's not here even to-night. He ran in a few moments ago, got his things and was off, saying he wouldn't be back again. And where is he, Pascualo? Over at your house of course!
Now that business was dull on the wharves, and tio Mariano hadn't gotten him that job in the coast and harbor survey he had wanted so, there was no reason why he shouldn't go along with his brother. The Rector rounded out the plan. The most important thing he had already his own boat, la Garbosa. Tonet gasped with surprise, so the Rector enlarged further on that detail.
Tonet and the two sailors were taking advantage of the calm to fish with hand lines. The "cat" was busy forward with the midday meal. The Rector was pacing the narrow deck astern, scanning the horizon and swearing for wind. The Garbosa was eating her way slowly along, but to all appearances she might have been nailed to the surface of that placid sea.
Dolores was at his side. Some distance away, with his rope-seated chair tilted back against an olive tree, and looking up at the moon through the branches in the dreamy pose of a chromo troubadour, sat Tonet, picking at the strings of a mandolin. On the walk in front some fish were frying on a little earthen stove.
Though spring had not yet come, the sun was so hot, that day, that the Rector and Tonet, to talk things over down on the beach, had sought out the shade of an old boat drawn up high and dry on the sand. There would be plenty of time to get their tan on when they got out to sea. The two men talked slowly and sleepily as if the glare and the heat along shore had gone to their heads.
In his eyes smuggling was the one thing a self-respecting sailor could take up when he got tired of fishing. Tonet thought it was a bright idea. He had made two trips like that, though as ordinary seaman.
The band of youngsters playing in the street were staring up at the moon as though they had never seen it before, singing in cadenced monotone with silvery little voices: La lluna, la pruna Vestida de dol ... "Eh, will you brats shut up!" Tonet protested, claiming that he had a headache. "You come and make us!" came the answering challenge: Sa mare la crida; Son pare no vol ...
But he couldn't talk very loud if he had married her with his eyes open. But Tonet! What could you find to say for him! Disgracing your own brother! Who ever heard of monstrousness like that! Your own brother! No, you cut the heart out of a beast of that kind! But scarcely had his blood-thirsty schemes of vengeance taken shape in his mind, that old habits of thinking had their say.
Siñá Tona, for her part, was quite satisfied with her boy. As much of a scamp as ever, but he had himself more in hand, and it was evident that the navy discipline had done him good. The same old Tonet, but he had been taught to dress better and cleaner, and he could drink without drinking too much.
"Remember me to mother!" he said, as he turned down to the beach, leaving his sister to go on alone along the road toward the tavern-boat. But it was late that night before the influence of that disquieting conversation was lifted from Pascualo's mind. Tonet was at home when he arrived, but did not seem at all embarrassed in his presence. All a lie, of course!
Word Of The Day