“And don’t make yourself over, Rafael.  If the world were made up of people like me, life would be impossible.  I too have moments when I should like to become a different person entirely—­a fowl, a cow, or something, like the folks around me, thinking of money all the time, and of what I’ll eat tomorrow; buying land, haggling with farmers on the market, studying fertilizers, having children who’d keep me busy with their colds and the shoes they’d tear, my widest vision limited to getting a good price for the fall crop.  There are times when I envy a hen.  How good it must be, to be a hen!  A fence around me to mark the boundaries of my world, my meals for the trouble of pecking at them, my life-work to sit hour after hour in the sun, balanced on a roost....  You laugh?  Well, I’ve made a good start already toward becoming a hen, and the career suits me to a ‘t.’  Every Wednesday I go to market, to buy a pullet and some eggs; and I haggle with the vendors just for the fun of it, finally giving them the price they ask for; I invite the peasant women to have a cup of chocolate with me, and come home escorted by a whole crowd of them; and they listen in astonishment when I talk to Beppa in Italian!  If you could only see how fond they are of me!...  They can hardly believe their eyes when they see the sinorita isn’t half so black as the city people paint her.  You remember that poor woman we saw up at the Hermitage that afternoon?  Well, she’s a frequent visitor, and I always give her something.  She, too, is fond of me....  Now all that is agreeable, isn’t it?  Peace; the affection of the humble; an innocent old woman, my poor aunt, who seems to have grown younger since I came here!  Nevertheless, some fine day, this shell, this rustic bark that has formed around me in the sun and the air of the orchards, will burst, and the woman of old—­the Valkyrie—­will step out of it again.  And then, to horse, to horse!  Off on another gallop around the world, in a tempest of pleasure, acclaimed by a chorus of brutal libertines!...  I am sure that is bound to happen.  I swore to remain here until Spring.  Well, Spring is almost here!  Look at those rose-bushes!  Look at those orange-trees!  Bursting with life!  Oh, Rafael, I’m afraid of Springtime.  Spring has always been a season of disaster for me.”

And she was lost in thought for a moment.  Dona Pepa and the Italian maid had gone into the house.  The good old woman could never keep away from the kitchen long.

Leonora had dropped her embroidery upon the bench and was looking upward, her head thrown back, the muscles of her arching neck tense and drawn.  She seemed wrapt in ecstacy, as if visions of the past were filing by in front of her.  Suddenly she shuddered and sat up.

“I’m afraid I’m ill, Rafael.  I don’t know what’s the matter with me today.  Perhaps it’s the surprise of seeing you; this talk of ours that has called me back to the past, after so many months of tranquillity....  Please don’t speak!  No, not a word, please.  You have the rare skill, though you don’t know it, of making me talk, of reminding me of things I was determined to forget....  Come, give me your arm; let’s walk out through the garden; it will do me good.”