that the many friends whom I have in Madrid have not been able to tempt me from this place; therefore it is that I spend my life in the sweet companionship of my faithful townspeople and my books, breathing the wholesome atmosphere of integrity, which is gradually becoming circumscribed in our Spain to the humble and Christian towns that have preserved it with the emanations of their virtues.  And believe me, my dear Pepe, this peaceful isolation has greatly contributed to preserve me from the terrible malady connatural in my family.  In my youth I suffered, like my brothers and my father, from a lamentable propensity to the most absurd manias; but here you have me so miraculously cured that all I know of the malady is what I see of it in others.  And it is for that reason that I am so uneasy about my little niece.”

“I am rejoiced that the air of Orbajosa has proved so beneficial to you,” said Rey, unable to resist the jesting mood that, by a strange contradiction, came over him in the midst of his sadness.  “With me it has agreed so badly that I think I shall soon become mad if I remain in it.  Well, good-night, and success to your labors.”

“Good-night.”

Pepe went to his room, but feeling neither a desire for sleep or the need of physical repose,—­on the contrary, a violent excitation of mind which impelled him to move, to act,—­he walked up and down the room, torturing himself with useless cavilling.  After a time he opened the window which overlooked the garden and, leaning his elbows on the parapet, he gazed out on the limitless darkness of the night.  Nothing could be seen, but he who is absorbed in his own thoughts sees with the mental vision, and Pepe Rey, his eyes fixed on the darkness, saw the varied panorama of his misfortunes unroll itself upon it before him.  The obscurity did not permit him to see the flowers of the earth, nor those of the heavens, which are the stars.  The very absence of light produced the effect of an illusory movement in the masses of foliage, which seemed to stretch away, to recede slowly, and come curling back like the waves of a shadowy sea.  A vast flux and reflux, a strife between forces vaguely comprehended, agitated the silent sky.  The mathematician, contemplating this strange projection of his soul upon the night, said to himself: 

“The battle will be terrible.  Let us see who will come out of it victorious.”

The nocturnal insects whispered in his ear mysterious words.  Here a shrill chirp; there a click, like the click made with the tongue; further on, plaintive murmurs; in the distance a tinkle like that of the bell on the neck of the wandering ox.  Suddenly Rey heard a strange sound, a rapid note, that could be produced only by the human tongue and lips.  This sibilant breathing passed through the young man’s brain like a flash of lightning.  He felt that swift “s-s-s” dart snake-like through him, repeated again and then again, with augmented intensity.  He looked all around, then he looked toward the upper part of the house, and he fancied that in one of the windows he could distinguish an object like a white bird flapping its wings.  Through Pepe Rey’s excited mind flashed instantly the idea of the phoenix, of the dove, of the regal heron, and yet the bird he saw was noting more than a handkerchief.