eople, they began to lose confidence in
him, and little by little Don Tiburcio Espadana lost his clientage,
and found himself almost obliged to beg for bread day by day. Then
it was that he learned from a friend of his, who was also a friend
of Dona Victorina about the position of that woman, and about her
patriotism and good heart. Don Tiburcio saw in her a bit of blue sky
and asked to be presented.

Dona Victorina and Don Tiburcio met. Tarde venientibus ossa, he would
have exclaimed if he had known Latin. She was no longer passable,
she was past. Her abundant hair had been reduced to a wad about the
size of an onion top, as the servants were wont to describe it. Her
face was full of wrinkles and her teeth had begun to loosen. Her eyes
had also suffered, and considerably, too. She had to squint frequently
when she cared to look off at a certain distance. Her character was
the only thing that had remained unchanged.

At the end of half an hour's conversation, they came to an
understanding and accepted each other. She would have preferred
a Spaniard less lame, less of a stammerer, less bald, one with
more teeth, one of more rank and social standing, or categoria,
as she called it. But this class of Spaniards never came to ask her
hand. She had heard, too, more than once that "opportunity is bald,"
and she honestly believed that Don Tiburcio was that very opportunity,
for on account of his dark days he had prematurely lost his hair. What
woman is not prudent at thirty-two?

Don Tiburcio, for his part, felt a vague melancholy when he thought
of his honeymoon. He smiled with resignation especially when he
called the phantom of hunger to his aid. He had never had ambition
or pretensions. His tastes were simple, his thoughts limited;
but his heart, untouched till then, had dreamed of a very different
divinity. In his youth when, tired by his day's labor, after a frugal
meal, he lay down on a poor bed, he dreamed of a smiling, affectionate
image. Afterward, when his sorrows and privations increased, the
years passed and his poetical dreams were not fulfilled, he thought
merely of a good woman, a willing hand, a worker, who might afford
him a small dowry, console him when tired from labor, and quarrel
with him from time to time. Yes, he was thinking of the quarrels as
a happiness! But when, obliged to wander from country to country,
in search no longer of a fortune, but of some commodity to sustain
his life for the remainde