as young I did not like it, but
now that I am old and own an inn and daughters and all that, _vamos_, I
understand. You see in Spain we all do just as we like; then, if we are
the sort that goes to church we repent afterwards and fix it up with
God. In European, civilized, modern countries everybody learns what
he's got to do and what he must not do.... That's why they have so many
laws.... Here the police are just to help the government plunder and
steal all it wants.... But that's not so in America...."

"The difference is," broke in Telemachus, "as Butler put it, between
living under the law and living under grace. I should rather live under
gra...." But he thought of the maxims of Penelope and was silent.

"But after all we know how to sing," said the _Padron_. "Will you have
coffee with cognac?... And poets, man alive, what poets!"

The _padron_ stuck out his chest, put one hand in the black sash that
held up his trousers and recited, emphasizing the rhythm with the
cognac bottle:

'Aqui esta Don Juan Tenorio;
no hay hombre para el ...
Busquenle los renidores,
cerquenle los jugadores,
quien se precie que le ataje,
a ver si hay quien le aventaje
en juego, en lid o en amores.'

He finished with a flourish and poured more cognac into the coffee
cups.

"_!Que bonito!_ How pretty!" cried the old hunchbacked woman who sat on
her heels in the fireplace.

"That's what we do," said the _padron_. "We brawl and gamble and
seduce women, and we sing and we dance, and then we repent and the
priest fixes it up with God. In America they live according to law."

Feeling well-toasted by the fire and well-warmed with food and drink,
Lyaeus and Telemachus went to the inn door and looked out on the broad
main street of the village where everything was snowy white under the
cold stare of the moon. The dancing had stopped in the courtyard. A
group of men and boys was moving slowly up the street, each one with a
musical instrument. There were the two guitars, frying pans,
castanettes, cymbals, and a goatskin bottle of wine that kept being
passed from hand to hand. Each time the bottle made a round a new song
started. And so they moved slowly up the street in the moonlight.

"Let's join them," said Lyaeus.

"No, I want to get up early so as...."

"To see the gesture by daylight!" cried Lyaeus jeeringly. Then he went
on: "Tel, you live under the law. Under the law there can be no
gestures, only m