Read Online The Stories of Eva Luna by Isabel Allende - Free Book Online

her feet, prepared to prove in his two hours that she could not do without him. He almost dragged her from the room; the men stood around drinking and checking their watches until the period of the reward had passed, but neither Hermelinda nor the foreigner appeared. Three hours went by, four, the whole night; morning dawned and the bells rang for work, and still the door did not open.
    At noon the lovers emerged. Pablo, without a glance for anyone, went outside to saddle his horse, a horse for Hermelinda, and a mule to carry their belongings. Hermelinda was wearing riding pants and jacket, and a canvas bag filled with coins was tied to her waist. There was a new expression in her eyes and a satisfied swish to her memorable rump. Solemnly, they strapped their goods onto the mule, mounted their horses, and set off. Hermelinda made a vague wave of farewell to her desolate admirers, and followed El Asturiano across the barren plains without a backward glance. She never returned.
    The dismay occasioned by Hermelinda’s departure was so great that to divert the workmen the management of Sheepbreeders, Ltd., installed swings, bought a target for darts and arrows, and had an enormous open-mouthed ceramic toad imported from London so the drovers could refine their skill in coin tossing, but before a general indifference, those toys ended up on the superintendent’s terrace, where as dusk falls the English still play with them to combat their boredom.

THE GOLD OF TOMÁS VARGAS
    B efore the monumental pandemonium of progress, anyone who had any savings buried them. That was the only way people knew to safeguard their money; it was only later they learned to have confidence in banks. Once the highway came through and it became easier to reach the town by bus, people exchanged their gold and silver coins for colored pieces of paper they kept in strongboxes, as if they were treasure. Tomás Vargas ridiculed these innocents because he never trusted the bank system. Time proved him right, and after the government of El Benefactor fell—it lasted some thirty years, they say—the bills had no value and many people ended up pasting them on the wall for decoration as an unpleasant reminder of their naïveté. While everyone else was writing letters to the new President and the newspapers were complaining of the general unworthiness of the new money, Tomás Vargas’s gold nuggets were buried in a safe hiding place, although his good fortune did nothing to mitigate his miserliness or his scrounging. The man had no decency; he borrowed money with no intention of paying it back, and his children went hungry and his wife wore rags while he wore Panama hats and smoked expensive cigars. He even refused to pay the fees for his children’s schooling; his six legitimate children were educated free, because the schoolteacher Inés was determined that as long as she had her wits about her and strength enough to work no child in her town would go without learning to read. Age did nothing to quell Vargas’s bent for quarreling, carousing, and womanizing. He took great pride in being the most macho macho in the region, as he bellowed in the plaza every time he went off his head with drink and broadcast at the top of his lungs the names of all the girls he had seduced and all the bastards who carried his blood. If he were to be believed, he had sired at least three hundred, for with every fit he spouted different names. The police carried him off more than once, and the Lieutenant himself had given him a few well-placed kicks in the behind, hoping that would improve his character, but the Lieutenant’s ministrations had no more effect than the priest’s admonitions. In fact, the only person Vargas respected was Riad Halabí, the storekeeper. That is why the neighbors came to him when they suspected that Vargas was drunk and out of control, and was beating his wife or his children. When that happened, the Turk