And just as our young ladies nowadays wait and wait and think and think before they make their hearts up, so Doña María waited and thought then--and the time slipped on and on, and neither the Lieutenant nor the Conde knew what was in her mind. Then there happened, Señor, a very dismal thing. A pestilence fell upon the City, and of that pestilence Doña María sickened and died. But it chanced that neither of her lovers was on his corner when they took her out from her house to bury her--you see, Señor, even lovers must eat and sleep sometimes, and they could not be always on their watch for her--and in that way it happened that neither of them knew that she was dead and gone. Therefore they kept on standing on their parade quite as usual--coming steadfastly to their corners day after day, and month after month, and year after year. And although, after a while, they died too, they still stood at their posts--just as though they and Doña María still were alive. And there, on their corners, they have remained until this very day.
It is told, Señor, that once in broad daylight half the City saw those honest waiting skeletons. It was on a day when there was a great festival for the incoming of a new Viceroy, and they were seen by the crowd that waited in the atrium of the church of Santa Catarina to see the procession pass. But that was some hundreds of years ago, Señor. Now, for the most part, it is at night and by moonlight that they are seen. I have not happened to see them myself--but then I do not often go that way.
What this street was called, in very old times, Señor, no one knows: because the dreadful thing that gave to it the name of the Street of the Jewel happened a long, long while ago. It was before the Independence. It was while the Viceroys were here who were sent by the King of Spain.
In those days there lived in this fine house at the corner of the Calle de Mesones and what since then has been called the Calle de la Joya--it is at the northwest corner, Señor, and a biscuit-bakery is on the lower floor--a very rich Spanish merchant: who was named Don Alonso Fernández de Bobadilla, and who was a tall and handsome man, and gentle-mannered, and at times given to fits of rage. He was married to a very rich and a very beautiful lady, who was named Doña Ysabel de la Garcide y Tovar; and she was the daughter of the Conde de Torreleal. This lady was of an ardent and a wilful nature, but Don Alonso loved her with a sincerity and humored her in all her whims and wants. When they went abroad together--always in a grand coach, with servants like flies around them--the whole City stood still and stared!