... Serafina, don't come in here; take the baby
into the dining-room," she said, interrupting herself on seeing her
daughter come into the bedroom with the sweet little thing in her arms.

"I have been all my life long. Never even in thought have I been untrue
to my husband. In return for this, he puts me to shame before the
servants, treating me little less than if I were a public woman. I
cannot longer endure this martyrdom, Miguel. I am dying, dying daily.
The other day he made a perfect scandal because he found the end of a
cigar in my room. As neither Vicente nor Carlos smoke, he took it for
granted that Hojeda had been there; he even went so far as to insist
that it was a cigar such as the apothecary smokes, although he always
smokes cigarettes! It made me faint away; they had to call the doctor.
Finally, in the night, a little fifteen-year-old servant boy whom we
have, seeing the serious trouble there was in the house, confessed to
the maid that it was he who had left the cigar-end there, and he went to
tell your Uncle Bernardo. Then, though he instantly dismissed him, he
did not remain calm. The servants don't stay with us more than a
fortnight; he imagines that they are all the apothecary's pimps.... Day
before yesterday the newsboy came along and handed me the paper as I
happened to be walking along the corridor. My husband sees it, takes it
into his head that this too is an emissary, and dashes out of the
window. Simply because Hojeda passed by a little while before! I can't
tell all that goes on; it is madness, a catastrophe! If it were not for
Vicente, I would blow my brains out with a revolver.... I cannot go out
without having my daughter with me, and then leaving on a piece of paper
where I am going.... He has ordered all the mattresses in the house to
be ripped open, so as to find some of the letters which he says that I
have hidden.... Finally,--but do you want to hear more? He has sent and
had an iron grating put in the fireplace, for he has an idea that Hojeda
comes in that way...."

"_Ave Maria!_ How crazy poor uncle must be!" exclaimed Miguel.

"Don't you believe it; he speaks as reasonably as you or I, and his
memory is as good as ever."

"Aunt, phrenopathy is not your strong point. Madmen have made progress
like every one else in this world. Nowadays, they discuss and talk like
all the rest of us. To distinguish an insane person from one in his
senses you must depend upon a specialist; consequ