e. I remained bewildered with surprise, longing for the night to
see what might be the meaning of this mystery or prodigy, and as I had
heard her called a witch, I expected wonderful things from the
interview. At last the time came, and I entered the room, which was
small, and low, and dimly lighted by an earthenware lamp. The old woman
trimmed it, sat down on a chest, drew me to her, and without speaking a
word, fell to embracing me, and I to taking care that she did not kiss
me.

"I did always hope in heaven," the old woman began, "that I should see
my son before my eyes were closed in the last sleep; and now that I have
seen you, let death come when it will, and release me from this life of
sorrow. You must know, my son, that there lived in this city the most
famous witch in the world, called Camacha de Montilla. She was so
perfect in her art, that the Erichtheas, Circes, and Medeas, of whom old
histories, I am told, are full, were not to be compared to her. She
congealed the clouds when she pleased, and covered the face of the sun
with them; and when the whim seized her, she made the murkiest sky clear
up at once. She fetched men in an instant from remote lands; admirably
relieved the distresses of damsels who had forgot themselves for a
moment; enabled widows to console themselves without loss of reputation;
unmarried wives, and married those she pleased. She had roses in her
garden in December, and gathered wheat in January. To make watercresses
grow in a handbasin was a trifle to her, or to show any persons whom you
wanted to see, either dead or alive, in a looking-glass, or on the nail
of a newborn infant. It was reported that she turned men into brutes,
and that she made an ass of a sacristan, and used him really and truly
in that form for six years. I never could make out how this was done;
for as for what is related of those ancient sorceresses, that they
turned men into beasts, the learned are of opinion that this means only
that by their great beauty and their fascinations, they so captivated
men and subjected them to their humours, as to make them seem
unreasoning animals. But in you, my son, I have a living instance to the
contrary, for I know that you are a rational being, and I see you in the
form of a dog; unless indeed this is done through that art which they
call Tropelia, which makes people mistake appearances and take one thing
for another.

"Be this as it may, what mortifies me is that neither yo