now everything, is it true that it died of hunger?"

And the Tato with his scandalous impetuosity shouted loudly--

"There is no justice in the world! All this must be altered! Fancy a
child dying of hunger in this house, where money runs like water, and
where all those creatures are dressed in gold!"

When the little corpse was carried to the cemetery, the cloister
seemed quite deserted; all its life was concentrated in the
shoemaker's house, all the women surrounded the mother. Despair had
rendered that sick and feeble woman furious. She no longer wept: her
child's death had made her ferocious--she wished to bite or to dash
her skull against the wall.

"Ay! my s-o-o-o-n! my Antonio!"

At night Sagrario and the other women remained in the house to look
after her. In her desperation she wished to make some one responsible
for her misfortune, and she fixed on those highest in the cloister.
Don Antolin had not helped her with the smallest alms; his affected
niece had scarcely been in to see the little one, nothing interested
her but men.

"It is all Silver Stick's fault," wailed the poor mother--"he is
a thief. He grinds our poverty with his usurer's snares. Never a
farthing did he give for my son. And that Mariquita is just the same.
Yes, senor, I do say so. She only thinks of decking herself out so
that the cadets may see her."

"For mercy's sake, woman, they will hear you," begged some of the
terrified women.

But others scouted this fear. "Let Don Antolin and his niece hear
them! What did it matter? The Claverias were tired of the rapacity
of the uncle, and the magnificent airs that ugly woman gave herself!
Because they were poor they were not going to spend their lives
trembling before that couple. God only knew what the uncle and niece
did when they were alone in the house together!"

A breath of rebellion had passed over that sleepy world. It was the
unconscious influence of Gabriel. What he had said to his friends had
been passed on to all the men in the Claverias, getting even to the
women. They were confused and garbled ideas, that very few could
understand, but they cherished them like fresh pure air reviving
their minds. They sounded in their ears like a pleasant echo from the
outside world. It was sufficient for them to know that this quiet life
of submission they had led up to now was not immutable--they had
a right to something better--and that human beings ought to rebel
against injustice and o