During the tiresome siestas of Vilamorta, while the visitors to the springs digested their glasses of mineral water and compensated themselves for the loss of their morning sleep by a restorative nap, the amateur musicians of the popular band practiced by themselves the pieces they were shortly to execute together. From the shoemaker's shop came the melancholy notes of a flute; in the baker's resounded the lively and martial strains of the horn; in the tobacconist's moaned a clarionet; in the cloth-shop, the suppressed sighs of an ophicleide filled the air. Those who thus devoted themselves to the worship of Euterpe were clerks in shops, younger sons, the youthful element of Vilamorta. These snatches of melody rose with piercing sonorousness on the drowsy warm atmosphere. When the news spread that Don Victoriano Andres de la Comba and his family were expected to arrive within twenty-four hours in the town, to leave it again immediately for Las Vides, the brass band was tuned to the highest pitch and ready to deafen, with any number of waltzes, dances, and quicksteps, the ears of the illustrious statesman.

In the town an unusual animation was noticeable. Agonde's house was opened, ventilated, and swept, clouds of dust issuing through the windows, at one of which, later on, appeared Agonde's sister, with a fringe of hair over her forehead and wearing a pearl-shell necklace. The housekeeper of the parish priest of Cebre, a famous cook, went busily about the kitchen, and the pounding of the mortar and the sizzling of oil could be heard. Two hours before the time of the arrival of the stage-coach from Orense, that is to say at three o'clock in the afternoon, the committee of the notabilities of the Combista-radical party were already crossing the plaza, and Agonde stood waiting on the threshold of his shop, having sacrificed to the solemnity of the occasion his classic cap and velvet slippers, and wearing patent-leather boots and a frock coat which made him look more bull-necked and pot-bellied than ever. The coach from Orense was entering the town from the side next the wood, and, at the tinkling of the bells, the clatter of the hoofs of its eight mules and ponies, the creaking of its unwieldy bulk, the inhabitants of Vilamorta looked out of their windows and came to their doors; the reactionary shop only remained closed and hostile. When the cumbrous vehicle turned into the square the excitement increased; barefooted children climbed on the coach steps, begging an ochavo in whining accents; the fruit-women sitting in the arches straightened themselves up to obtain a better view, and only Cansin, the clothier, his hands in his trousers' pockets, his feet thrust into slippers, continued walking up and down his shop with an Olympic air of indifference. The overseer reined in the team, saying in soothing accents to a rebellious mule:

"E-e-e-e-e-e-h! There, there, CanÓniga."

The brass band, drawn up before the town-hall, burst into a deafening prelude, and the first rocket whizzed into the air sending forth a shower of sparks. The crowd rushed en masse toward the door of the coach, to offer their hands, their arms, anything, and a stout lady and a priest, with a cotton checked handkerchief tied around his temples, alighted from it. Agonde, more amused than angry, made signs to the musicians and the rocket-throwers to desist from their task.

"He is not coming yet! he is not coming yet!" he shouted. In effect, there were no other passengers in the omnibus. The overseer hastened to explain:

"They are just behind, not two steps off, as one might say. In Count de Vilar's carriage, in the barouche. On the SeÑora's account. The luggage is here. And they paid for the seats as if they had occupied them."

It was not long before the measured trot of Count de Vilar's pair of horses was heard and the open carriage, of an old-fashioned style, rolled majestically into the plaza. Reclining on the back seat was a man enveloped, notwithstanding the heat, in a cloth cloak; at his side sat a lady in a gray linen duster, the fanciful brim of her traveling-hat standing out sharply against the pure blue of the sky. In the front seat sat a little girl of some ten years and a mademoiselle, a sort of transpyrenean nursery governess. Segundo, who had kept in the background at the arrival of the diligence, this time was less stubborn and the hand which, covered with a long SuÈde glove, was stretched out in quest of a support, met with the energetic and nervous pressure of another hand. The Minister's lady looked with surprise at the gallant, gave him a reserved salutation and, taking the arm Agonde offered her, walked quickly into the apothecary's.

The statesman was slower in alighting. His adherents looked at him with surprise. He had changed greatly since his last visit to Vilamorta—then in the midst of the revolution—some eight or ten years before. His iron-gray hair, whiter on the temples, heightened the yellow hue of his complexion; the whites of his eyes, too, were yellow and streaked with little red veins; and his furrowed and withered countenance bore unmistakable traces of the anxieties of the struggle for social position, the vicissitudes of the political bench, and the sedentary labors of the forum. His frame hung loosely together, being wanting in the erectness which is the sign of physical vigor. When the handshakings began, however, and the "Delighted to see you——" "At last——" "After an age——" resounded around him, the dying gladiator revived, straightened himself up, and an amiable smile parted his thin lips, lending a pleasing expression to the now stern mouth. He even opened his arms to Genday, who squirmed in them like an eel, and he clapped the Alcalde on the back. GarcÍa, the lawyer, tried to attract attention to himself, to distinguish himself among the others, saying in the serious tone of one who expresses an opinion in a very delicate matter:

"There, upstairs, upstairs now, to rest and to take some refreshment."

At last the commotion calmed down, the great man entering the apothecary's, followed by GarcÍa, Genday, the Alcalde, and Segundo.

They seated themselves in Agonde's little parlor, respectfully leaving to Don Victoriano the red rep sofa, around which they drew their chairs in a semi-circle. Shortly afterward the ladies made their appearance, and, now without her hat, it could be seen that SeÑora de Comba was young and beautiful, seeming rather the elder sister than the mother of the little girl. The latter, with her luxuriant hair falling down her back and her precocious womanly seriousness, had the aspect of a sickly plant, while her mother, a smiling blonde, seemed overflowing with health. They spoke of the journey, of the fertile borders of the Avieiro, of the weather, of the road; the conversation was beginning to languish, when Agonde's sister entered opportunely, preceded by the housekeeper of the priest, carrying two enormous trays filled with smoking cups of chocolate, for supper was a meal unknown to the hosts. When the trays were set on the table and the chocolate handed around, the company grew more animated. The Vilamortans, finding a congenial subject on which to exercise their oratorical powers, began to press the strangers, to eulogize the excellence of the viands, and calling SeÑora de la Comba by her baptismal name, and adding an affectionate diminutive to that of the little girl, they launched forth into exclamations and questions.

"Is the chocolate to your taste, Nieves?"

"Do you like it thin or thick?"

"Nieves, take that morsel of cake for my sake; you will find it excellent; only we have the secret of making it."

"Come, VictoriniÑa, don't be bashful; that fresh butter goes very well with the hot bread."

"A morsel of toasted sponge-cake. Ah-ha! You don't have cake like that in Madrid, eh?"

"No," answered the girl, in a clear and affected voice. "In Madrid we eat crullers and doughnuts with our chocolate."

"It is the fashion here to take sponge-cake with it, not crullers. Take that one on the top, that brown one. That's nothing, a bird could eat it."

Don Victoriano joined in the conversation, praising the bread, saying he could not eat it, as it had been absolutely prohibited to him, for his malady required that he should abstain from starch and gluten in every form—indeed, he had bread sent him from France, bread prepared ad hoc without those elements—and as he spoke, he turned toward Agonde, who nodded with an air of intelligence, showing that he understood the Latin phrase. And Don Victoriano regretted doubly the prohibition now, for there was no bread to be compared to the Vilamorta bread—which was better of its kind than cake, yes indeed. The Vilamortans smiled, highly flattered, but GarcÍa, with an eloquent shake of the head, said that the bread was deteriorating, that it was not now what it had formerly been, and that only Pellejo, the baker of the plaza, made it conscientiously, having the patience to select the wheat, grain by grain, not letting a single wormeaten one pass. It was for this reason that his loaves turned out so sweet and substantial. Then a discussion arose as to whether bread should be porous or the contrary, and as to whether hot bread was wholesome.

Don Victoriano, reanimated by these homely details, talked of his childhood, of the slices of bread spread with butter or molasses which he used to eat between meals, and when he added that his uncle, the priest, occasionally administered a sound drubbing to him, a smile once more softened the deep lines of his face. This expansion of feeling gave a sweeter expression to his countenance, effacing from it the traces left by years of strife, the scars of the wounds received in the battle of life, illuminating it with a reflection from his vanished youth. How he longed to see again a grapevine in Las Vides from which he had robbed grapes a hundred times when he was a child.

"And you will rob them again now," exclaimed Clodio Genday gayly. "We must tell the master of Las Vides to put a guard over the vine of Jaen."

The jest was received with demonstrations of hilarity, and the girl laughed with her shrill laugh at the idea of her papa robbing a grapevine. Segundo only smiled. His eyes were fixed on Don Victoriano, and he was thinking of what his life had been. He went over in his mind the history of the great man: At Segundo's age Don Victoriano, too, was an obscure lawyer, buried in Vilamorta, eager to break from the shell. He had gone to Madrid, where a celebrated jurisconsult had taken him as his assistant. The jurisconsult was a politician, and Victoriano followed in his footsteps. How did he begin to prosper? This period was shrouded in obscurity. Some said one thing, some another. Vilamorta found him, when it least expected, its candidate and representative. Once in Congress Don Victoriano's importance grew steadily, and when the Revolution of September came it found him in a sufficiently exalted position to be improvised a minister. The brief ministry gave him neither time to wear out his popularity nor to give proof of special gifts, and, with his prestige almost intact, the Restoration admitted him as a member of a fusionist cabinet. He had just laid down the portfolio and come to re-establish his shattered health in his native place, where his influence was strong and incontestible, thanks to his alliance with the illustrious house of Mendez de las Vides. Segundo asked himself if a lot like Don Victoriano's would satisfy his aspirations. Don Victoriano had wealth—stocks in banks and shares in railways among whose directors the name of the able jurisconsult figured. Our versifier raised his eyebrows disdainfully and glanced at the Minister's wife; that graceful beauty certainly did not love her lord. She was the daughter of a younger son of the house of Las Vides—a magistrate; she had probably married her husband, allured by his position. No; most assuredly the poet did not envy the politician. Why had this man risen to the eminent position he occupied? What extraordinary gifts did he possess? A diffuse parliamentary orator, a passive minister, with some forensic ability—sum total, a mediocrity.

While these reflections were passing through Segundo's mind, SeÑora de Comba amused herself by examining minutely the dress and the appearance of everyone present. She took in every detail, under her half-closed lids, of the toilet of Carmen Agonde, who was arrayed in a tight-fitting deep blue bodice that sent the blood to her plethoric cheeks. She next lowered her mocking glance to the patent-leather boots of the pharmacist, and then raised them again to Clodio Genday's fingers, stained by the cigar, and the purple and white checked velvet waistcoat of the lawyer GarcÍa. Finally, her glance fell on Segundo, in critical examination of his attire. But another glance, steady and ardent, cast it back like a shield.

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