Fernán Caballero - La Gaviota

Stein and the shepherd entered, and found the family assembled around the hearth.

At the left of the chimney, Dolores, seated on a low chair, held her infant, who, turning his back to his mother, supported himself on the arm which encircled him, like the balustrade of a balcony; he moved about incessantly his little legs and his small bare arms, laughing, and uttering joyous cries addressed to his brother Anis. This brother, gravely seated opposite the fire, on the edge of an empty earthen pan, remained stiff and motionless, fearing that, losing his equilibrium, he would be tossed into the said earthen pan, an accident which his mother had predicted.

Maria was sewing at the right side of the chimney; her grand-daughters had for seats dry aloe-leaves, excellent seats, light, solid, and sure. Nearly under the drapery of the chimney-piece slept the hairy Palomo, and a cat, the grave Morrongo, tolerated from necessity, but remaining, by common consent, at a respectful distance from each other.

In the middle of this group there was a little low table, on which burned a lamp of four jets; close to the table the brother Gabriel was seated, making baskets of the palm-tree; Momo was engaged in repairing the harness of the good “Swallow” (the ass); and Manuel, cutting up tobacco. On the fire was conspicuous a stew-pan full of Malaga potatoes, white wine, honey, cinnamon, and cloves. The humble family waited with impatience till the perfumed stew should be sufficiently cooked.

“Come on! Come on!” cried Maria, when she saw her guest and the shepherd enter. “What are you doing outside in weather like this? ’Tis said a hurricane has come to destroy the world. Don Frederico, here, here! come near the fire. Do you know that the invalid has supped like a princess, and that at present she sleeps like a queen! Her cure progresses well – is it not so, Don Frederico?”

“Her recovery surpasses my hopes.”

“My soups!” added Maria with pride.

“And the ass’s milk,” said brother Gabriel quietly.

“There is no doubt,” replied Stein, “and she ought to continue to take it.”

“I oppose it not,” said Maria, “because ass’s milk is like the turnip – if it does no good it does no harm.”

“Ah! how pleasant it is here!” said Stein, caressing the children. “If one could only live in the enjoyment of the present, without thought of the future!”

“Yes, yes, Don Frederico,” joyfully cried Manuel, “ ‘ Media vida es la candela; pan y vino, la otra media. ’ ” (Half of life is the candle; bread and wine are the other half)

“And what necessity have you to dream of the future?” asked Maria. “Will the morrow make us the more love to-day? Let us occupy ourselves with to-day, so as not to render painful the day to come.”

“Man is a traveller,” replied Stein, “he must follow his route.”

“Certainly,” replied Maria, “man is a traveller; but if he arrives in a quarter where he finds himself well off, he would say, ‘We are well here, put up our tents.’ ”

“If you wish us to lose our evening by talking of travelling,” said Dolores, “we will believe that we have offended you, or that you are not pleased here.”

“Who speaks of travelling in the middle of December?” demanded Manuel. “Goodness of heaven! Do you not see what disasters there are every day on the sea? hear the singing of the wind! Will you embark in this weather, as you were embarked in the war of Navarre, for, as then, you would come out mortified and ruined.”

“Besides,” added Maria, “the invalid is not yet entirely cured.”

“Ah! there,” said Dolores, besieged by the children, “if you will not call off these creatures, the potatoes will not be cooked until the last judgment.”

The grandmother rolled the spinning-wheel to the corner, and called the little infants to her.

“We will not go,” they replied with one voice, “if you will not tell us a story.”

“Come, I will tell you one,” said the good old woman.

The children approached. Anis took up his position on the empty earthen pot; and the grandma commenced a story to amuse the little children.

She had hardly finished the relation of this story, when a great noise was heard.

The dog rose up, pointed his ears, and put himself on the defensive. The cat bristled her hair, and prepared to fly. But the succeeding laugh very soon was frightful: it was Anis, who fell asleep during the recital of his grandmother. It happened that the prophecy of his mother was fulfilled as to his falling into the earthen pan, where all his little person disappeared, except his legs which stuck out like plants of a new species. His mother, rendered impatient, seized with one hand the collar of his vest, raised him out of this depth, and, despite his resistance, held him suspended in the air for some time – in the style represented in those card dancing-jacks, which move arms and legs when you pull the thread which holds them.

As his mother scolded him, and everybody laughed at him, Anis, who had a brave spirit, a thing natural in an infant, burst out into a groan which had nothing of timidity in it.

“Don’t weep, Anis,” said Paca, “and I will give you two chestnuts that I have in my pocket.”

“True?” demanded Anis.

Paca took out the two chestnuts, and gave them to him. Instead of tears, they saw promptly shine with joy the two rows of white teeth of the young boy.

“Brother Gabriel,” said Maria, “did you not speak to me of a pain in your eyes? Why do you work this evening?”

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Gaviota is the name of a sea-gull. It applies familiarly to the female scold, imprudent, stupid, and of harsh manners, indicated by the well-known proverb: “The sea-gull – the older she is, the louder she screams.”

Brief name for Geronimo, in Andalusia.