TUERTO'S FAMILY LIFE
From ‹La Leva›
Before going any further, the reader should be informed that there existed from time immemorial, between the seagoing folk of High Street [the street along the heights] and those by the water-side, an inextinguishable feud.
Each quarter forms a separate fishing corporation, or guild; and the two have not been willing even to adopt the same patron saint. The High Street folks, or the Upper Guild, chose Saint Peter, while those on Beach Street, or the Lower Guild, commend themselves to the holy martyrs Emeterius and Celadonius; and to those illustrious saintships—said to have miraculously come to port in a bark made of stone—they have built, at their own expense, a very pretty chapel, in the Miranda quarter, overlooking a wide expanse of ocean.
So now we continue.
Tuerto [«Cross-Eyes»] enters his house. He tosses off his sou'-wester or serviceable tarpaulin hat, throws down upon an old chest his duck waterproof, which he had carried on his shoulder, and hangs up on a nail a basket with an oil-skin covering, and full of fishing-tackle. His wife dishes up in an old broken pan a mess of beans and cabbage, badly cooked and worse seasoned, sets it on the chest, and puts alongside it a big piece of coarse brown bread. Tuerto, without letting fall a word, waits till his infants have got around the board also, and then begins to eat the mess with a pewter spoon. His wife and children accompany him, taking turns with another spoon, of wood. The beans and cabbage are finished. Tuerto has the air of expecting something next, which does not come; he looks at the dish, then into the bottom of the empty stew-pan, then finally at his wife. The woman turns pale.
«Where is the meat?» he at length inquires, with the chronic hoarse voice of the fisherman.
«The meat?» stammered his wife. «As the butcher's shop was closed when I went to get it, I did not bring any.»
«That's a lie. I gave you the two reals and a half to buy it yesterday noon, and the butcher's doesn't close till four. What have you done with the money?»
