On the left leg of my trousers were stuck two little heads of angels, a rose, a bunch of lilies, and I know not what other properties. I had to make a clean breast of it, and give him a faithful and detailed description of the sweetmeat-box artists.
How glad I felt to start for Galicia! In Madrid the heat had become stifling, while at home one could enjoy the pure, fresh air, filled with the sweet fragrance of the country. It seemed as if I had never breathed before, and that my exhausted lungs required that moist, balmy, and pure air in order to perform their functions properly.
I am not one of those Galicians who feel homesickness very intensely, but, nevertheless, the first group of chestnuts which I recognized in the distance, appeared to me like a friend bidding me welcome home.
My mother was at Ullosa, so I went there at once, partly by stage and partly on foot, for one has to make use of all sorts of locomotion to get there. I arrived at sunset, and my mother came out into the road to meet me. With joined hands, and arm in arm, we walked over the space which separates Ullosa from the highway.
After she had wiped away the tears which invariably gather in a mother’s eyes when she sees her son after a long absence, her first volley of questions was as follows: “So your uncle has hired a house, eh? Is it true that he has furnished it very handsomely? That’s what a man does if he has money. They say that the bridal-bed is sumptuous. What rent does he pay? Something frightful, I presume, because everything is up to the sky in Madrid. And do you know whether he has yet secured a servant? It will be a wonder if he does not hire some horrid jade. That’s the way the city council’s funds fly off. That’s why they do such mean things. Don’t say that they don’t, or you’ll drive me wild, Salustio.”
“But, my dear mother, what difference does it make to us?” I exclaimed, when I could get in a word edgewise. “How am I to blame because my uncle gets married?”
“Because you said it was all right,” she replied, stopping to take breath, while her lips quivered like children’s when their little troubles come upon them.
“You seem to think my uncle would be guided by what I say. You must make the best of it, dear mother, and try to bear patiently what you can’t help. I am sure that is the best way to act, on all accounts, even for our own advantage.”