When Jacobo heard this question, he for a moment suspended the hateful task of swallowing his chocolate, raised his angry face to the housekeeper, and shouted with concentrated fury:--
"What am I going to do!... You shall see, you shall see what I am going to do!"
And then he once more began to grit his teeth so terribly that Doña Adelaida was frightened out of her wits, and exclaimed:--
"Come now, calm yourself, calm yourself, Jacobito! You know that I was present when you were born, and that your sainted mother, who left you when you were a mere baby--poor woman!--charged me to have a watchful eye over you. If you should do anything desperate, you will kill me with sorrow.... Come, my son, tell me what you intend to do...."
The lad, pushing away the chocolate cup with an energetic movement, and rolling his eyes frenziedly, screamed rather than said:--
"Do you want to know what I am going to do?... Then I will tell you this very instant.... I am going to the factory, I am going to put on a blouse, I am going to daub my hands with grease, pull the candle moulds, and roast my face in front of the furnaces.... And when any stranger comes to the factory, the hands will be able to say: 'This man whom you see--dirty, nasty, ill-smelling--used to be a gentleman cadet, a cadet in the Military Academy!... Ah!" he said, concluding with a muffled voice, "Ah! no one knows, no one knows what Jacobo Utrilla is capable of!"
The housekeeper, who was expecting some desperate resolution, when she found that it was of this sort, could not refrain from a cry of joy.
"That is right, my son, that is right! That is the best way of heaping coals of fire on the heads of your father and brother, who have been pestering me to death by saying that you were of no use, that you were a lazybones...."
"But before doing that," interrupted Jacobo, extending both hands as though he were trying to hold back the avalanche which was about to fall, "it is necessary that one of us two perish!"
"Merciful Virgin!" exclaimed Doña Adelaida. "Who is going to perish, Jacobito? For Heaven's sake, don't go lose your mind! Do you want your father to die?"
"Not him, señora, not him! I refer to my algebra professor, with whom this afternoon or to-morrow at the very latest, I am going to fight a duel!"