by Jorge Icaza (1906-1978)
Translated from Spanish by Richard Gabela
Chapter I
Several times a day Don Ernesto Morejón Galindo, Chief-Director of the Bureau of Economic Investigation, abandoned his small office to monitor the attendance of the employees in his charge. Don Ernesto was a man of uneven temperament. Completely uneven. When he was in a good mood, he would boast about being a Don Juan, indulging in lewd confidences in the manner of a half-bred woman from the vegetable market or a newly arrived Andean cowboy. With the graphic and pornographic gestures of a sex addict, he would whisper in the ear of the person acting as his confidant at the moment: “What a wild night, my dear cholo. Three young ladies were at my service. Two of them turned out to be virgins.… He-he-he… All for free.” But when it came time to publicly rebuke his henchmen (as he inwardly referred to his subordinates) he swelled with omnipotence and meted out threats without concert or order. In such times, when his domineering arrogance exploded, the most grotesque characteristics of his fat face stood out: his flushed cheeks which resembled a pair of rosy buttocks, his lips that trembled like soft clay, the bilious drool dripping between his teeth, the demonic flame burning in his pupils.
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