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226 DAYS IN THE SUN
the women who live by the sale of their bodies. They
do not like to visit his church, but each one of them
has in her home a little altar with a lamp burning
before his image day and night. On my former visit
to Spain, Beppa had lived at the corner of a street of
ill repute, and whenever we sat out on the balcony in
the evening, we could see the women of the streets in
the neighboring houses kneeling before their saint
and addressing him sometimes in the following words:
“San Antonio, que vengan cabrones!” (San Antonio,
send along some bucks!). If by any chance a priest
happened to slink along the wall and knock at one of
the little doors, Beppa would clap her hands together
and shout with a ring of true respect in her voice:
“There is a saint for you, this San Antonio! He
even goes so far as to send a priest, a real priest!”
No one is better suited to run the errands of the
church than her own servant; and besides, who would
be so narrow-minded as to insist on his celibacy? Of
all the hundreds of priests in Granada, the population
does not know of one who has no children, but they
do tell you of one that has nine. And the common
people humorously make the priest utter the touching
sigh:
Merciful God, thou who forgivest all things!
Why should my children call me uncle,
When everybody else says I am a father?
Gods, saints and priests are nothing but big children
in the eyes of the Andalusian; and the Andalusian con-
siders that like children they may at times be naughty,
but they are essentially good. One should not de-
mand too much of them but treat them with a certain
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