surely she would have arrived much sooner if, early in her career, she
had developed a talent for living respectably.

The old lady passed most of the day in the confinement of her dark
room, which reeked of stable odors, rice powder and cosmetics; at
night she had to accompany her daughter and her granddaughter on
walks, and to cafes and theatres, on the hunt and capture of the kid,
as it was put by the travelling salesman who suffered from his
stomach,--a fellow half humorist and half grouch. When they were in
the house Celia and Irene, the daughter and the granddaughter of Dona
Violante, kept bickering at all hours; perhaps this continuous state
of irritation derived from the close quarters in which they lived;
perhaps so much passing as sisters in the eyes of others had convinced
them that they really were, so that they quarrelled and insulted one
another as such.

The one point on which they agreed was that Dona Violante was in their
way; the burden of the blind woman frightened away every libidinous
old fellow that came within the range of Irene and Celia.

The landlady, Dona Casiana, who at the slightest occasion suspected
the abandonment of the blind old woman, admonished the two maternally
to gird themselves with patience; Dona Violante, after all, was not,
like Calypso, immortal. But they replied that this toiling away at
full speed just to keep the old lady in medicine and syrups wasn't at
all to their taste.

Dona Casiana shook her head sadly, for her age and circumstances
enabled her to put herself in Dona Violante's place, and she argued
with this example, asking them to put themselves in the grandmother's