THE DEVIL'S MOTHER-IN-LAW, AND
OTHER STORIES OF MODERN SPAIN
THE DEVIL'S MOTHER-IN-LAW
Fernan Caballero
Well, sir! Once upon a time there lived in a place called Villagañanes a woman who was uglier than the Sergeant of Utrera, who was so ugly that his face cracked in two; more dried up than a bundle of hay, and yellower than the plague itself. She had, besides, such a bad temper that Job himself could not have endured her. She was nicknamed "Aunt Holofernes," and the moment she put her head out of the door, all the boys ran away. Aunt Holofernes was as neat as a pin and as industrious as an ant, but her daughter Pamfila was so lazy that an earthquake could not have roused her. So Aunt Holofernes scolded her from morning till night.
"It takes a yoke of oxen to get you out of bed. You are as afraid of work as you are of the pest, fonder of gaping out of the window than a she-monkey, and more love-sick than Cupid himself."
Pamfila got up, yawned, stretched herself, slipped behind her mother's back, and went to the street door. Aunt Holofernes began to sweep and with her usual activity, accompanying the sound of her broom with some such monologue as this:
"In my time, girls had to work like mules";
