2023-04-26 13:00:00
Don Severo was a confirmed bachelor. He lived in a small upstate town, and among all of his generation he was the only one who hadn’t given in to the bonds of marriage.
The truth, already gave what to say. People remembered the saying “mature bachelor, sure faggot” and whispered about it. The rumors reached the ears of the interested party, and both to put an end to the gossip and because – it must be said – the inconveniences of being single were already weighing on him, Don Severo decided to get married.
So he set about looking for a woman. She didn’t want to marry just anyone. He knew another saying: “From a landowner or an industrious woman, the second is more beautiful.” In other words, for a wife she is better a working woman than a rich woman. But how was he to know which of the village girls was good at housework and which was not?
He had an idea. He thought that household chores make calluses on the hands of the women in his house. And in his search for a wife he discreetly began to investigate. Every time she shook hands with one of the marriageable girls in the place, she discreetly brushed her palm and fingers to see if she had calluses, sure indicators that the girl knew about the broom and the mop, the colander and the duster, of the high pole that is used to remove cobwebs from the ceilings.
He did this concealed examination of all the girls, and in none of them did he notice the longed-for calluses. They all had fine, soft hands, exquisite, without any hint of callus. It was well seen that the owners of those rose petal hands never did anything; who were given over to sweet idleness.
Don Severo despaired, he already thought that he would never find the woman he was longing for, a hard worker, a good housewife, with hands hardened by the daily chores of the home. One day, however, someone introduced him to a girl who lived on the outskirts of the town. Oh very pleasant surprise! Shaking her hand in greeting, he felt the calluses he was searching for her. With skillful discretion he examined her palm and fingers very carefully. There was no doubt: there were the calluses he wanted. Big and hard, they showed with unequivocal truth that that girl swept, mopped, washed, sewed, ironed and did what her wife should do in her house.
He began to court her, proposed to her, made her his girlfriend, proposed to her, and finally married her. Don Severo was happy. Sure, he thought, his house would look like a neat little silver cup.
He was wrong. It didn’t take him long to realize the bitter truth: his brand new wife was lazy, careless, negligent, lazy, lazy. She got up at one in the afternoon and did nothing but look in the mirror, comb her hair, do her nails, and groom herself. The house was upside down: poor Don Severo couldn’t find a clean shirt to wear; he ate at odd hours and very badly; the bed was never made; there was complete disorder in the house. He called his wife’s attention, and she replied dismissively:
-I am like that.
Furious, Severo was very angry with his father-in-law. His daughter, he told her, was lazy and didn’t know how to do anything.
-And why did he marry her? the man asked defiantly.
“Because I thought she was a hard worker,” Don Severo replied. I noticed calluses on her hands, and I thought she had them from doing the housework.
“No,” the father-in-law corrected him. Those calluses of hers grew from holding on to the bars of the window so much watching the men go by.
#Tripe #devil #story #Don #Severo #bachelor #wife