Page:2015.150347.Epitaph-Of-A-Small-Winner.pdf/100

 "You're not?"

I shook my head.

"You may as well give up, Contrim," said my sister to her husband. "In a few minutes he'll want the clothes off our backs; that's the only thing he hasn't asked for."

"This is really the limit. He wants the coach, he wants the coachman, he wants the silver, he wants everything. Look here, it's much quicker to haul us into court and prove with witness that Sabina isn't your sister, that I'm not your brother-in-law, and that God isn't God. Go ahead, and then you won't lose anything, not even a teaspoon. Oh no, my friend, you can't have everything your own way."

He was so enraged, and I was so ill prepared to yield completely, that I made him an offer of compromise; to divide the silver. He laughed, and asked me who would get the teapot and who would get the sugar bowl; and after this question he remakred that I need not worry, we could always go to court to settle our claims. Sabina had gone to the window tha opened on the yard; after a moment she returned and offered to give up Paulo and the other Negro on condition that she got the silver. I was going to refuse, but Contrim saved me the trouble.

"Never! I don't give charity!" he said.

We dined together, glumly. My uncle the canon joine us at dessert, just in time to witness a little altercation.

"My children," he said, "remember that my brother left enough bread for all."

But Contrim:

"Yes, yes. However, the question is not about bread, it's about butter. I can't swallow dry bread."

A division of the inheritance was finally made, but it could not erase the fact that we had fought bitterly. It pained me greatly to fight with Sabina. We had been such friends! As children, we had played and quarrelled together; as adults, we had talked and laughed together, we had shared bread of pain and of joy, fraternally, like the good brother and sister that we were. But now we had fought. Our comradeship had vanished like Marcella's beauty. 100