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Show THE DEVIL'S MOTHER-IN-LAW. From the Spanish of Fernan Cabellero [Caballero]. In a certain town there once lived an old woman called Aunt Holofernes. She possessed a crooked form, a hideous face, and a temper so accursed that Job himself would have been unable to endure her. Her neighbors were so afraid of her that whenever she appeared in the door of her house they all took to their heels. She was as busy as a bee, and consequently had no little trouble with her daughter Panfila, who was so lazy and so great a friend of Father Quiet, that nothing short of an earthquake would move her. "You are as weak as the tobacco of Holland," cried Aunt Holofernes to her daughter, one morning. "A yoke of oxen are needed to draw you from your bed. You fly from labor as from a pestilence. All you want to do is to stand at the window and watch the boys in the street. But I've made up my mind to turn over a new leaf with you. Get up directly, you shameless thing, or I'll make you move more swiftly than the wind!" Panfila yawned, stretched herself, arose, and when her mother's back was turned slipped out of the door. Aunt Holofernes, without perceiving the absence of her daughter, began sweeping the floor, muttering as she did ever. "When I was young, girls worked like mules." Whish, whish, whish, went the broom. "And they lived as secluded as nuns." Whish, whish, whish, went the broom. "Now, not one of them can be made to work." Whish, whish. "All they ever think about is getting marries." Whish, whish. "They are all-" At this instant Aunt Holofernes reached the porch, and beheld her daughter standing upon the steps, making signals to a youth across the street. The dance of the broom instantly terminated in a vigorous blow across the back of the amorous girl, which worked the miracle of making her run. The old woman hobbled in pursuit, but no sooner did she make her appearance in the door than the youth fled as swiftly as his legs would carry him. "You accursed love-sick fool! I will break every bone in your body!" screeched the infuriated mother. "Why?" asked Panfila. "Because I am trying to get married?" "You shall never get married, no, never! I will not allow it!" cried the hag, flourishing her broom. "Why will you not allow it?" asked Panfila. "Did you not get married, madam, and did not my grandmother get married, and also my great-grandmother?" "There is not a day of my life that I do not lament my marriage, for if I had remained single you would never have seen the light, you impudent girl," retorted Aunt Holofernes, "and I wish you to understand that although I got married, and my mother and my grandmother, I am firmly resolved you shall not get married, nor my granddaughter, nor my great granddaughter." In these delightful colloquies the mother and daughter passed their lives, without any result than that the mother became each day more ill-tempered, and the daughter more enamored. On one occasion, when Aunt Holofernes was engaged in cleansing linen, she called to Panfila to help her lift from the fire a kettle of boiling lye. Panfila, instead of obeying, ran to the door to listen to a song which at that instant a well-known voice began singing in the street. Aunt Holofernes, seeing that her daughter did not come to assist her, grasped the kettle and tried to pour its contents upon the cloth, but she was very old and weak, and the fiery liquid, instead of entering the straining basket, fell upon her feet and burned them severely. She dropped the kettle and gave vent to a shriek of agony, which speedily brought Panfila to the spot. "Accursed one! twice accursed one! thrice accursed one!" screamed the old woman, transformed into a basilisk. "You can't think of anything except getting married. May God permit that you may marry the devil!" A few days later, a young man, coming from no one knew where, made his appearance in the town. He paid ardent court to Panfila, and soon proposed to her. Panfila, wild with joy, accepted him. He entreated Aunt Holofernes to give her consent to the match, but the old woman savagely refused. Then he gave her several valuable presents (he was reputed to be immensely rich), and she reconsidered her refusal, and reluctantly gave him permission to marry her daughter. Preparations for the wedding were at once commenced. While they were in progress the voice of the people began to rise in denunciation of the stranger. It is true that he was handsome, and generous and affable, and was not above clasping in his white, jeweled fingers the black, horny palms of the humblest laborers; but they were not to be won over to him by his courtesy and condescension; their opinion of him, though as rough, was also as hard and solid, as their hands. As for Aunt Holofernes, the more she gazed at her future son-in-law, the more she disliked his looks. In spite of his thick hair her keen eyes detected upon his cranium certain protuberances that are not to be seen upon the heads of saints, and she remembered with dread those terrible words that she had hurled at her daughter that memorable day when she burned her foot with the boiling lye. At length the wedding-day arrived. Aunt Holofernes had made cakes and reflections - the first sweet and the last bitter; she had provided an olta podenda for dinner and a harmful project for supper; and she had prepared a barrel of wine that was very mellow and generous, and a plan of conduct that was very far from being entitled to those epithets. When the newly-married couple were about to retire to the nuptial-chamber, Aunt Holofernes called her daughter aside and whispered these words in her ear: "As soon as you get in your room, fasten all the doors and windows, and close every aperture except the key-hole. Then take a branch of blessed olive and wave it over your husband. This ceremony is customary in weddings, and signifies that within the house the man is to be in subjection to the woman." Panfila, obedient for the first time in her life, promised to do all that her mother commanded. When the bridegroom saw the branch of olive in the hand of the bride, he uttered a shriek of terror, glanced wildly around in search of some place of exit, and then made a frantic dive through the key-hole; for, be it known that the husband of Panfila was, as Aunt Holofernes had suspected, the devil in person. That sable individual is accredited by fame with a great deal of knowledge, but he learned to his cost that his mother-in-law knew far more than he. Just as he was congratulating himself on having made his escape, he found himself a close prisoner in a bottle, the mouth of which the old woman had [unreadable line] tones most humble and gestures most pathetic, he entreated her to set him at liberty; but she resolutely refused. Hobbling up a neighboring mountain, she deposited the bottle upon the summit, shook her withered fist affectionately in her son-in-law's face, and returned home rejoicing. On the summit of that mountain his Satanic Majesty remained ten years. During that time the earth was as tranquil as a pool of oil. Everybody attended to his own business instead of his neighbor's; robbery came to be a word without signification; weapons moldered, gunpowder was consumed only in artificial fires, the prisons were empty; in fact, during this decade, only one deplorable event happened - the lawyers all died of starvation! But, alas! this happy period could not last forever. Everything in this world has to have an end except the discourses of some eloquent orators. The end of this enviable decade was brought about in the following manner: A certain soldier had obtained permission to visit his home which was in the same town in which the events we are narrating transpired. The road that he took wound around the base of the lofty mountain upon whose summit the husband of Panfila was imprisoned. Reaching the foot of the mountain the soldier determined to cross it instead of going around it. On arriving at the summit he beheld the bottle in which the son-in-law of Aunt Holofernes had for the last ten years dragged out a horrible existence, cursing all mothers-in-law past, present, and future, and composing and reciting satires against the invention of cleaning linen with lye. The soldier picked up the bottle, held it up in the light, and perceived the devil who, with the lapse of years, fasting, the hot rays of the sun, and intense mental suffering, had become as withered as a dried plum. "What monstrosity is this?" he exclaimed, in wonder. "I am that honorable and much-abused personage whom men call the devil," humbly and courteously replied the captive. "My wicked mother-in-law - oh that I had her now in my claws! - has kept me imprisoned here for ten years. Set me free, valiant warrior, and I will grant you any favor you may ask of me." "I wish an honorable discharge from the army," said the soldier. "You shall have it. Let me out now as speedily as possible, for it is a monstrous shame to keep shut up, in this revolutionary time, the foremost revolutionist in the world." The soldier half uncorked the bottle. From the opening thus made, came a mephitic vapor which almost suffocated him. He sneezed violently, and with the palm of his hand gave the cork a blow which submerged it so deeply that the bottom of it struck the head of the devil, causing him to give utterance to a cry of pain. "What are you doing, you vile earthworm?" he exclaimed. "Let me out as you promised!" "Hold a bit!" said the soldier. "I think the service you ask of me is worth a larger reward than you have offered. In addition to an honorable discharge from the army, I desire a thousand doubloons." "You avaricious hound, I have no money!" cried the devil. The soldier looked incredulous. "By Satan! by Lucifer! by Beelzebub I haven't a single maravedi!" screamed the devil. "Haven't a single maravedi! You're a great monarch, you are!" said the soldier, contemptuously. "I have no need of money, and so I don't keep any," said the prisoner. "You have need of money now, for without it you will not get loose. Give me a thousand doubloons, and I will set you free; refuse, and I will leave you here on this mountain." "I tell you I have no money!" vociferated the devil. The soldier placed the bottle on the ground. "Well, I guess I'd better be jogging along," he said. "Good by." He began to descend the mountain. "Come back! come back!" whined the captive. "I have indeed no money, but I will get some for you." The soldier retraced his steps. "How will you get it for me?" he asked. "Set me free," said the captive, "and I will enter into the body of the princess of this kingdom. She will be very ill, and the royal physician will be summoned to attend her; but none of them will be able to cure her. At the proper time do you present yourself at the palace and offer to restore her to health, placing your compensation at a thousand doubloons. The king loves her dearly, and will accede to your terms. After you have doctored her for a short time I will go forth from her body, leaving her in perfect health, and you will then receive your money." "Agreed," said the soldier. He uncorked the bottle, and the devil departed and entered into the body of the princess. She became very ill. The royal physicians were summoned, but were unable to cure her. The king was in the extremest affliction. At the proper time the soldier presented himself at the palace and offered to cure the princess for a thousand doubloons. The king admitted his services, but only on one condition - if the cure was not effected within three days the presumptuous doctor was to be hanged. To this condition the soldier, who was very confident of success, raised not the least objection. Unfortunately, the devil heard the bargain. The first day passed without the recovery of the princess. The second day passed and still she lay groaning upon her couch. Then the soldier began to suspect that the devil intended to remain in the body of the princess more than three days, for the purpose of having him hanged. But he did not despair. When the supposed doctor called on the morning (?) of the third [unreadable] a scaffold in front of the (?) palace. Entering the sick-room, he found the patient worse. The king commanded him to be seized and hanged. "Wait a moment," said the soldier, calmly. "I have not yet exhausted all of my resources." He left the palace and gave orders in the name of the princess that all the bells in the place should be rung. When he returned the devil asked him: "What are those bells ringing for?" "They are ringing for the arrival of you mother-in-law whom I have sent for," answered the soldier. The devil shrieked, and fled so swiftly that a ray of light would have been unable to overtake him. The princess, freed from her tormentor, arose from her couch in perfect health. The king was overjoyed at her recovery, and gave the soldier thrice the sum that he had promised. |