She was the princess of the fairy tales longing to
become a shepherdess. There she meant to stay,
in the shade of her orange-trees, now and then fondling
a memory of her old life, perhaps, but wishing eternally
to enjoy that tranquillity, fiercely repelling Rafael,
therefore, because he had tried to awaken her, as
Siegfried rouses Brunhilde, braving the flames to
reach her side.
No; friends, friends, nothing else! She wanted
no more of love. She already knew what that was.
Besides, he had come too late....
And Rafael tossed sleeplessly in his bed, rehearsing
in the darkness the story he had been told. He
felt dwarfed, annihilated, by the grandeur of the
men who had preceded him in their adoration of that
woman. A king, great artists, handsome and aristocratic
paladins, Russian counts, potentates with vast wealth
at their command! And he, a humble country boy,
an obscure junior deputy, as submissive as a child
to his mother’s despotic ways, forced to beg
for the money for his personal expenses even—he
was trying to succeed them!
He laughed with bitter irony at his own presumptuousness.
Now he understood Leonora’s mocking tone, and
the violence she had used in repulsing all boorish
liberties he had tried to take. But despite the
contempt he began to feel for himself, he lacked the
strength to withdraw now. He had been caught
up in the wake of seduction, the maelstrom of love
that followed the actress everywhere, enslaving men,
casting them, broken in spirit and in will, to earth,
like so many slaves of Beauty.
“Good morning, Rafaelito ... we are seeing each
other betimes today.... I am up so early not
to miss the marketing. I remember that Wednesday
was always a great event in my life, as a child.
What a crowd!...”
And Leonora, with the great swarming cities far from
her mind, was really impressed at the numbers of bustling
people crowding the little square, called del Prado,
where every Wednesday the “grand market”
of the Alcira region was held.
Their sashes bulging with money bags, peasants were
coming into town to buy supplies for the whole week
out in the orange country. Orchard women were
going from one stall to the next, as slender of body
and as neatly dressed as the peasant girls of an opera
ballet, their hair in senorita style, their
skirts of bright batiste gathered up to hold their
purchases and showing fine stockings and tight-fitting
shoes underneath. Tanned faces and rough hands
were the only signs to betray the rustic origin of
the girls; because those were prosperous days for
the orange growers of the District.
