If you were alone, you would live much better."

"Come, come, don't be absurd, Maximina. Without you I should live
neither well nor ill.... I should die," he replied, laughing.

Although excited by the prospect of the examinations, and working for
them perhaps harder than he ought, our hero was not unhappy. When there
is peace and love by the fireside, family life is the best sedative for
mental sufferings. This on one side, and on the other the confidence
which he had in his forces made living, up to a certain point,
delightful.

There came a day, however, in which happiness and relative calmness
disappeared at the announcement that the examinations for which he was
working were indefinitely postponed, possibly till the next year.

All his plans fell to the ground. As he had not for some time thought of
any other way of escape from his difficulties, he felt annihilated. He
had strength enough, nevertheless, to hide it from his wife, and to
appear at home serene and happy as usual. Redoubled by the surprise, the
energies of his soul were awakened to new vigor.

"It is necessary, at all events, to seek for work," he said to himself.
He had money enough to last only for a month. Still he allowed his wife
to spend as before, certain that she could not economize more than she
did at the time without undergoing serious privations. The first thought
that occurred to him was to seek for employment with some private firm.
He called on a number of friends, and all cheered him with good words.

Nevertheless a month passed, and no employment appeared. He found
himself obliged to pawn his watch in order to pay his landlord and store
account; he told his wife that he had left it to be regulated.

A second month passed, and still nothing turned up. One day Maximina,
dead with mortification, said to him, as though she were confessing some
crime:--

"Miguel, the shopkeeper down street has sent me his bill, and as I have
not a cuarto, I can't pay it."

The brigadier's son trembled; but hiding it as well as he could, he
replied, with affected indifference:--

"Very well; I will see that it is paid when I go out. How much is it?"

"Two hundred and twenty-four reals."

"Do you need any more money?"

Maximina dropped her eyes and blushed.

"I owe Juana her wages."

"I will bring it this afternoon."

He said these words without knowing what he said. Where was he to get
it? His Uncle Bernardo had been sent some months befor