# The Devil's Mother-in-Law/The Devil's Mother-in-Law

THE DEVIL'S MOTHER-IN-LAW, AND OTHER STORIES OF MODERN SPAIN
THE DEVIL'S MOTHER-IN-LAW
Fernan Caballero
Well, sir! Once upon a time there lived in a place called Villagañanes a woman who was uglier than the Sergeant of Utrera, who was so ugly that his face cracked in two; more dried up than a bundle of hay, and yellower than the plague itself. She had, besides, such a bad temper that Job himself could not have endured her. She was nicknamed "Aunt Holofernes," and the moment she put her head out of the door, all the boys ran away. Aunt Holofernes was as neat as a pin and as industrious as an ant, but her daughter Pamfila was so lazy that an earthquake could not have roused her. So Aunt Holofernes scolded her from morning till night.
"It takes a yoke of oxen to get you out of bed. You are as afraid of work as you are of the pest, fonder of gaping out of the window than a she-monkey, and more love-sick than Cupid himself."
Pamfila got up, yawned, stretched herself, slipped behind her mother's back, and went to the street door. Aunt Holofernes began to sweep and with her usual activity, accompanying the sound of her broom with some such monologue as this:
"In my time, girls had to work like mules"; ​swish, swish, swish went the broom. "They were kept as close as nuns"; swish, swish "Nowadays they are a pack of fools"; swish, swish. "They think of nothing but beaux"; swish, swish.
Just then she caught sight of her daughter making signs to a lad outside, and the broom dance ended in a good drubbing over Pamfila's shoulders, which had the miraculous effect of making her run. Then Aunt Holofernes went, broom in hand, to the door, but hardly had she shown herself when her face had its usual effect, and the lover vanished as quickly as if he had had wings on his feet.
"You worthless, love-sick girl!" cried the mother; "I'd like to break every bone in your body."
"What for? Who do you think would marry me then?"
"Marry you! you fool! Nobody shall marry you as long as I live!"
"But didn't you get married, señora, and my grandmother and my great-grandmother?"
"More's the pity! But let me tell you that I don't intend that you shall marry, nor my granddaughter, nor my great-granddaughter. Do you hear that?"
In such sweet communion of spirit did the mother and daughter spend their lives, with this result, that the mother scolded harder from day to day, and the daughter grew more and more sentimental.
One day, when Aunt Holofernes was making lye out of. wood-ashes, she called Pamfila to help her lift the heavy caldron from the fire. ​The daughter heard her with one ear, but with the other was listening to a well-known voice singing in the street:
"I'd like to make love to you, But your mother won't let me; The old devil, confound her, Must meddle in everything."
Finding the view out of the window more attractive than the lye kettle, Pamfila leaned on the sill. By-and-by, seeing that her daughter Was not coming and that time was flying, Aunt Holofernes lifted the caldron alone, to pour the lye over the clothes, and as the old woman was little and not over strong, she let it spill over on her foot. Hearing her mother’s cries, Pamfila ran to her assistance.
"You wicked good-for- nothing, love-sick girl," cried Aunt Holofernes, in a towering rage; "thinking of nothing but getting married. I wish to God you'd marry the devil!"
Some time after this a most unexceptionable lover presented himself. He was young, good-looking, well-behaved, and with well-filled pockets. Even Aunt Holofernes could find nothing to object to in him. Pamfila was half wild with delight, so preparations were made for the wedding. Everything was going on smoothly, when, all at once people began to talk against the stranger, though he was very polite, well-bred, and clever. He talked well and sang better, and pressed affectionately the horny palms of the peasant farmers between his soft, white, jeweled hands. But all his politeness did ​not overcome their prejudices; they had too much common sense, and their heads were as hard as their hands.
"Caramba," said Uncle Blas, "his ugly-faced lordship takes it upon himself to call me Señor Blas, as if he were doing me a great honor. What do you think of that?"
"Well, look at me!" said Uncle Gil; "didn't he give me his hand as if we had been brought up like brothers? Doesn't he pretend to think me a city-bred man, when I have never been outside our parish, and never want to go?"
As for Aunt Holofernes, the more she looked at her son-in-law the more she distrusted him. It seemed to her that she could detect certain suspicious protuberances under that innocent-looking red hair, and she recollected with uneasiness the curse which she had pronounced upon her daughter the memorable day when she demonstrated, conclusively, how much it hurts to scald oneself with boiling lye.
At last the wedding-day arrived. Aunt Holofernes had made tarts and reflections, the first sweet, the latter bitter, a great dish of olla podrida for the wedding-dinner, and a deep-laid scheme for supper; had prepared a barrel of generous wine, and a plan of conduct not quite so much so.
When the bridal pair were about to retire to their apartment, Aunt Holofernes called her daughter and said to her:
"When you go into your room shut all the doors and windows, and stop up every hole and crack except the keyhole. Then take a branch of blessed olive, and begin to beat your hus​band. Keep till I call to you to stop. This ceremony is never omitted at weddings; and signifies that the woman is to rule in her own apartments and serves to sanction and establish her rule."
Pamfila, obedient to her mother for once in her life, did just as the wily old woman told her to do.
As soon as the bridegroom caught sight of the blessed olive branch in his wife's hand he turned to run away. But finding the doors and windows all shut, and every crack stopped up, and seeing no other way of escape but the keyhole, he slipped into it as if it had been a porte-cochère, for, as you must already have guessed, what Aunt Holofernes had expected turned out to be the case. This spruce-looking youth, so red and white, and so soft-spoken, was no less a person than the devil himself, who, taking advantage of the power Aunt Holofernes had given him by her curse, wanted to treat himself to all the pleasures of a wedding-feast.
But this gentleman, though he is said to be no fool, had met a mother-in-law who was his match, and Aunt Holofernes is not the only one of her kind. So hardly had his lordship entered the keyhole when he found himself in a little bottle, which his mother-in-law was holding ready to receive him as he came through. He was no sooner in than the old woman sealed the bottle up. Her son-in-law begged her humbly to give him his liberty. But the devil could not impose on Aunt Holofernes. Off she started With the bottle and its contents, and when she ​came to a mountain, she climbed and climbed till she reached the very top, and then she put down the bottle and hurried off, shaking her fist at her son-in-law by way of farewell.
And their his highness stayed for ten year. And such a ten years, gentlemen! The world was like a great pool of oil. Every man minded his own business and did not meddle with what did not concern him. Nobody coveted his neighbor’s wife nor anything that was his neighbor’s. Robbery became a word without a meaning. Weapons lay idle, and were consumed with rust; gunpowder was used only in fireworks. The prisons were emptied, and in fact in this golden decade there was only one deplorable event—the lawyers all died of starvation.
But alas! such happiness could not last forever, and this is how it came to an end. A soldier named Briones obtained leave to spend a few days in his native village, Villangañanes. He took the road which led by the mountain on whose summit reposed Aunt Holofernes' son-in-law, cursing all mothers-in-law, past, present, and future, vowing that when he got out he would put an end to the whole nest of vipers by simply abolishing marriage.
When he reached the foot of the mountain, Briones did not choose to follow the road which turned off to one side, but kept straight ahead, telling the muleteers who were with him that if the mountain would not get out of his way, he should walk right over it, if it were so high that it touched the floor of the heavens.
When he reached the top he was surprised ​to find the bottle, which stood there like a wart on the nose of the mountain. He picked it up, held it to the light and seeing the devil, whom time, imprisonment, fasting, and the heat of the sun had withered away till he looked like a dried plum, he cried out:
"What little mis-begotten imp is this?"
"I am a very worthy and respectable devil," answered the prisoner hastily, with the utmost humility and politeness. "The wicked plot of a treacherous mother-in-law (just let me get my hands on her once) has kept me imprisoned here for ten years. Let me out, gallant warrior, | and I will grant you any favor you may ask of me."
"I want my discharge," answered Briones, without a moment's hesitation.
"You shall have it; but take out the stopper quick, for it is a horrible shame in these rebellious times to keep the chief of rebels shut up in prison."
Briones loosened the cork, and there rushed out of the bottle such a smell of brimstone that it choked him. He sneezed and hastened to drive in the cork again. He gave it such a violent blow with his open hand that it hit the prisoner, who howled with rage and pain.
"What are you doing, you wretch?" cried he; "you are more wicked and treacherous than my mother-in-law."
"I'm going to add another condition to our bargain. It seems to me that the service I am going to render you is worth it."
"And what is your condition?" asked the devil.
​"I want four dollars a day as long as I live; you won't get out unless you agree to these terms."
"By Satan, by Beelzebub, by Lucifer," cried the devil, "I have no money to give you, avaricious wretch!"
"Oh," answered Briones, "that is a pretty answer for a gentleman like you to make. If you don't keep your part of the bargain, I shall not keep mine."
"Since you don't believe me, let me out and I will help you to get some money, as I have helped many a one before. That is all I can do for you; hurry up and let me out."
"Wait a bit!" answered the soldier, "there is no great hurry. The world is getting along very well without you. I'll hold you by the tail till you keep your promise to me."
"Don't you trust me, you insolent dog?" cried the devil.
"No," answered Briones.
"What you require of me is beneath my dignity," answered the devil, with as much arrogance as a dried plum can assume.
"All right!" said the soldier, "then I'll go away and leave you."
"Good-by!" said the devil, but seeing that Briones was going away, the prisoner began to jump about in the bottle, calling to the soldier.
"Come back, come back, my dear friend; come, you good kind fellow, let me out, and hold me by the tail or by the nose, just as yo please, oh, valiant warrior," and muttered to himself: "I'll be revenged on you yet. If I can't manage to give you Aunt Holofernes for a ​mother-in-law, I'll make you burn your face at the same fire, if I have any power left."
When Briones heard the devil begging so hard, he came and uncorked the bottle. Aunt Holofernes' son-in-law crept out like a chicken out of the shell, first his head, then his body, and last of all his tail, which Briones seized, in spite of the devil's efforts to get away. The ex-prisoner, who felt quite cramped and benumbed, stretched his arms and legs, and then they started off for the royal palace, the devil running along in front and the soldier following, holding the tail fast in his hand. When they reached the palace, the devil was about to skip away, but Briones held on to his tail and said:
"Now that I come to think it over, señor, four dollars a day is a miserable pittance, unworthy of you, of me, and of the service I have done you. You must be a little more generous. Do something which will be a credit to you in this world, where (excuse my plain speaking) you do not enjoy a very savory reputation."
The devil agreed to. his terms, as he needs must, and said:
"I am going to slip down the throat of the, princess, whom the king, her father, loves to distraction, and I shall cause her such pain that no doctor can cure her. Then you must present yourself, offering to effect a cure for a pension of as many dollars a day as you may want, and I will come out. So our accounts will be settled."
Everything occurred as he had planned it. The princess took to her bed, convulsed with ​pain, and the king was in agonies of anxiety about her. Briones presented himself with the effrontery of a man who knows that the devil is helping him. The king accepted his service on one condition, which was, that if he did not cure the princess in three days, as he positively promised to do, the presumptuous doctor should be hanged.
Briones, certain of success, agreed to these terms, put unfortunately the devil heard the agreement and jumped with joy when he saw a chance to revenge himself on the soldier. The devil's jump gave the princess so much pain that she screamed for the doctor. The next day the same scene occurred, and Briones saw that the devil intended to let him hang. But the soldier kept his wits about him, and the third day when the pretended physician arrived, they were busy erecting a gallows in front of the palace door. When he entered the princess' apartment, her sufferings were redoubled, and she cried out to her attendants to take way the imposter.
"My resources are not exhausted," said Briones, gravely. "I beg your royal highness to have patience a moment."
Then he went out and gave his orders, in the princess' name, that all the bells in the city should be rung. When he returned to the royal chamber, the devil, who had a mortal hatred of bells, and who is, besides, very inquisitive, asked Briones:
"What saint are they ringing the bells for?"
"I sent for your mother-in-law," answered ​Briones: they are ringing in honor of her arrival."
The devil no sooner heard that his mother-in-law had come, than he slipped out and ran away so fast that a ray of sunlight could not overtake him, and left Briones, proud as a turkey-cock, and rejoicing in his good fortune.