So they remained silent for a while.
"Haven't you had any supper yet?
Here are rice and fish." "I don't want anything, only a little water." "Yes," answered his mother sadly, "I know that you don't like dried fish.

I had prepared something else, but your father came." "Father came ?" asked Basilio, instinctively examining the face and hands of his mother.
The son's questioning gaze pained Sisa's heart, for she understood it only too well, so she added hastily: "He came and asked a lot about you and wanted to see you, and he was very hungry.

He said that if you continued to be so good he would come back to stay with us." An exclamation of disgust from Basilio's contracted lips interrupted her.

"Son!" she reproached him.
"Forgive me, mother," he answered seriously.

"But aren't we three better off--you, Crispin, and I?
You're crying--I haven't said anything." Sisa sighed and asked, "Aren't you going to eat?
Then let's go to sleep, for it's now very late." She then closed up the hut and covered the few coals with ashes so that the fire would not die out entirely, just as a man does with his inner feelings; he covers them with the ashes of his life, which he calls indifference, so that they may not be deadened by daily contact with his fellows.
Basilio murmured his prayers and lay down near his mother, who was upon her knees praying.