This, Carmen said, was a thing without utility, a caprice of Señora Sotopeña’s, who had been commissioned with the selection of finery in Madrid, and who had insisted that the bride must have an evening dress. The jewels given by the father were some old family jewels reset; there was a splendid brooch, and several other things. The Sotopeña family had sent her an elegant fan, representing Fortuny’s “Vicarage,” and with shell sticks. Her brother had given her an ordinary-looking bracelet. Then followed a collection of jewel-cases, albums, useless articles,--the thousand and one trifles, as ordinary as they are worthless, which are only bought and sold on the pretext of giving a present on the occasion of a wedding or birthday. Behind them all, in one corner, as though ashamed of itself, was a most singular object--an enormous rat-trap.
“Why, who gave you that?” I asked, without being able to restrain my laughter.
“Who else could it be but Serafín,” she replied, joining in my mirth.
“Yes; and he felt so proud of it. I wish you could have seen him holding his rat-trap on high, exclaiming:
“But about that Serafín,--is he crazy, foolish, or what is he?”
“In my opinion, he has not got over being a child. He has not a bad heart, and sometimes makes bright remarks. But a moment afterward he’ll fly off on a tangent, and say all sorts of silly things. Sometimes, for example, he will make a sound observation regarding some point of theology or morality,--I know it is so because Father Moreno says so,--and again he is exceedingly stupid about the simplest facts. Once we gave him some candle snuffers, telling him to snuff a candle, and he took them, looked at them attentively, wet his fingers in his mouth, snuffed the candle with his fingers, and then, opening the snuffers, put the bit of wick inside, saying proudly: ‘I can see very well how you work, little box!’”
We were still laughing at this anecdote when we went out into the garden. My prospective aunt showed me the outbuildings, the hen house, the stables, and the orchard, inviting me to taste the fruit of the sweet cherry, to pick some flowers, and to try the swing and the trapeze.
Father Moreno made his appearance in the garden, calm, communicative, and even jocose. He questioned me about certain people who preferred to take a dip rather than attend mass celebrated by a friar; about Serafín, who could not be found to do service as acolyte; about our triumphal excursion through San Andrés. Señor Aldao also was not long in presenting himself. He was brushed and waxed, his mustaches dyed, and his cranium glistening like a billiard-ball; but he looked to me like a wreck, under the green shade of his opened umbrella. He asked me if I “had seen it all,” with the air of a Medici inquiring whether a foreigner has visited his palaces and galleries. Then he added: