“Exactly,” I replied, imagining that his recitations were from the fourth book of a certain ecclesiastical work called the Aeneid , written by a certain Friar Virgil of the order of Predicadores.
“It must be as I say,” said Doña Leocadia. “And now, Señor de Araceli, let us see if you can help me move this table.”
“With the greatest pleasure, dear lady. I will move it for you myself,” I replied, taking charge of it at the moment that Don José de Montoria entered, pouring out “ porras ” and “ cuernos ” from his blessed mouth.
“How is this, porra !” he cried; “men occupied in women’s business? It is not for moving tables and chairs that a gun has been placed in your hands! And you, wife? How can you distract in this manner a man needed on the other side? You and the children, porra ! can you not move the furniture? Are you made of paste or cheese? Look! In the street below is the Countess de Bureta with a bed on her shoulders, and her two maids carrying a wounded soldier on a cot.”
“Very well,” said Doña Leocadia, “there is no need of making such a noise about it. The men may go. Everybody out into the street, and leave us alone! Away with you, too, Augustine my son, and God preserve you in the midst of this inferno.”
“We must carry twenty sacks of flour from the Convent of Trinitarios to the headquarters of supplies,” said Montoria. “Come, let us all go.”
And when we were in the street, he added, “The numbers of people in Saragossa will soon make half rations necessary. It is true, my friends, that there is much concealed provision, and although it has been ordered that everybody declare what he has, many do not take any notice of the order, and keep what they have to sell at fabulous prices. It’s a bad business. If I discover them, and they fall into my hands, I will make them understand that Montoria is president of the junta of supplies.”