Conversation in the Cathedral by Mario Vargas Llosa

Letters.
    “Are you supposed to be a vamp, a clown, or what?” Santiago asked. “Where are you going all prettied up and with all that makeup on?”
    “What’s your major in Letters going to be?” Aída asked. “ Philosophy ?”
    “Wherever I feel like and what business is it of yours?” Teté asked. “Who said anything to you and what right have you got to talk to me?”
    “Literature, I think,” Santiago said. “But I’m still not sure.”
    “Everybody who goes into Literature wants to be a poet,” Aída said. “You too?”
    “Stop your fighting,” Señora Zoila said. “You’re like a cat and a dog, that’s enough.”
    “I had a notebook of poems hidden away,” Santiago says. “No one was to see it, no one was to know about it. You see? I was a pure boy.”
    “Don’t blush because I asked you if you wanted to be a poet.” Aída laughed. “Don’t be so bourgeois.”
    “They drove you crazy too by calling you Superbrain,” Ambrosio says. “All the fights you people had, child.”
    “You can go change that dress and wash your face,” Santiago said. “You’re not going out, Teté.”
    “And what’s wrong with Teté’s going to the movies?” Señora Zoila asked. “Since when have you been so strict with your sister here, you, the liberal, the priest-eater?”
    “She’s not going to the movies, she’s going dancing at the Sunset with that damned Pepe Yáñez,” Santiago said. “I caught her making her plans by phone this morning.”
    “To the Sunset with Pepe Yáñez?” Sparky asked. “With that half-breed ?”
    “It’s not that I want to be a poet, just that I like literature,” Santiago said.
    “Are you out of your mind, Teté?” Don Fermín asked. “Is all this true, Teté?”
    “All lies, lies.” Teté trembled and singed Santiago with her eyes. “Damn you, you imbecile, I hate you, go drop dead.”
    “So do I,” Aída said. “In Education I’m going to take Literature and Spanish.”
    “Do you think you can fool your parents like that, you little devil?” Señora Zoila said. “And what do you mean by telling your brother to drop dead? Have you gone crazy?”
    “You’re not old enough for nightclubs, child,” Don Fermín said. “You won’t be going out tonight, tomorrow, or Sunday.”
    “I’m going to take Pepe Yáñez apart,” Sparky said. “I’ll kill him, papa.”
    Teté was shouting and weeping now, she’d spilled her cup of tea, why don’t you drop dead, and Señora Zoila you’re acting crazy, crazy, such a great big man and such a great big coward, and Señora Zoila you’re staining the tablecloth, instead of gossiping like a woman go write your fairy poetry. She got up from the table and left the dining room still shouting your fairy gossip poetry and go drop dead, damn you. They heard her go up the stairs, slam her door. Santiago stirred the spoon in the empty cup as if he had just put some sugar in it.
    “Is it true what Teté says?” Don Fermín smiled. “Do you write poetry, Skinny?”
    “He keeps it hidden in a little notebook behind the encyclopedia, Teté and I have read it all,” Sparky said. “Love poetry, and about the Incas too. Don’t be ashamed, Superbrain. Look at his expression, papa.”
    “You’re barely literate, so it must have been hard for you to have read anything,” Santiago said.
    “You’re not the only person in the world who knows how to read,” Señora Zoila said. “Don’t be so stuck-up.”
    “Go write your fairy poetry, Superbrain,” Sparky said.
    “What have the pair of you learned, why did we send you to the best school in Lima?” Señora Zoila sighed. “You insult each other like truck-drivers right in front of us.”
    “Why didn’t you tell me you were writing poetry?” Don Fermín asked. “You have to show me some, Skinny.”
    “Sparky and Teté’s lies,” Santiago babbled. “Don’t pay any attention to them, papa.”
    There was the examining board, there were three of them, a