The Torrent

aw you for a moment only, this morning; they'll be wa

ep, scrutinizing, severely maternal eyes that recalled

Club?..." she added. "Andrés wi

his mother and don Andrés, who were still at table si

ansion, of such princely magnificence, he experienced the sudden sense of comfort a

han a thousand people who had thronged the streets of Alcira to get a close look at him, this was the first moment he had found himself alone, his own master, able to do

hing in their green boxes! There he had spent the best years of his childhood. The little boys who in those days used to be hiding behind the wide portal, waiting for a chance to play with the son of the pow

at his mother had been not a little instrumental in the preparation of his noisy reception, not to mention don Andrés, and numerous other

o, looking up at the balconies of the first story, then at the attic windows-from which in mischievous years gone by he had many a time withdrawn his head at the sound of his

answering in a few impressive words the questions flung at him by his party adherents, who followed him about with idolatrous e

ow that was open, though but slightly. His mother and don Andrés were still talking in the dining-room-and of him, as usual, without a doubt!

to the cold wind of Madrid and to the winter rains, Rafael inhaled, with a sense of voluptuous pleasure, th

a visit to don Carlos. A memory of a Venetian calle now came back to Rafael's mind as he traversed the streets of old Alcira-shadowy, cramped, sunk deep as wells between rows of high ho

e idlers had fled to the cafés, and as the deputy walked smartly by in front of these, warm waves of air came out upon

he ancient structure. A number of row-boats, made fast to the houses on the shore, were tugging at their moorings. Rafael recognized among them the fin

ad come at night to nibble at them; then two niches with a collection of mutilated, dust-laden images-San Bernardo, patron Saint of Alcira, and his estimable sisters. Dear old San Bernar

ng clerical and a woman of credulous faith, had told him of the patron of Alcira, particularly the legend o

he bridge to get his donkey shod. When the work was done the horseshoer asked for the usual price for his labor; but San Vic

say: 'This is where

" the statue of San Bernardo

lling the wily saint down from his perch. It is also true that every five or six years the flood would shake houses loose from their foundations, destroy good farm land, drown people, and commit other horrible depredations-all in obedience to the curse of Valencia's patron; but the saint of Alcira wa

"New City," ample, roomy, unobstructed, as if the close-packed houses of the island, to get elbow-room and a breath of air, had stamped

olitics! Or, if not a speech, idle talk about the orange crop, or cock-fighting. He would be expected to tell them what kind of a man the Premier was-and then spend the afternoon analyzing the character of every minister! Then don Andrés would be there, that boresome Mentor who, at the instance of Ra

shine and to those perfumes of May floating about him in w

he open country, he drew a deep breath, as if to imprison in

e wheels of irrigating machines sounded from the distance like humming insects. The moisture rising from the canals, joined the clouds from the

rs around that rough testimonial of popular piety. The sanctuary seemed to be talking to him like an indiscreet friend, betraying

that morning on the train, the first thing he had seen, before opening his eyes even, was an orange orchard, the bank of the

his thoughts had lingered on

to unroll as if the moist, cellar-like gloom in which the Chamber is always plunged, had thickened suddenly, and against this curtain, like a cinema dream, rows of orange-trees would come into view, and a blue house with open windows; and pouring through the windows a stream of notes from a soft voice, ever so

e vote? Y

the same again, after dinner with his colleagues on committees, when the deputies, their cigars tilted cockily upwards between their lips, and with all the voluptuous gaiety inspi

rd it,-not without some hesitation; a vague uneasiness he could not explai

oom! As Rafael walked on toward the Blue House, he thought bitterly of his situation. Why was he going there anyhow? Why insist on living in a stew all the time? He had had two or three short but violent scenes with his mother a few months before. What a fury that stern, pious, and puritanic woman became when she found

d struggle, of service to "the Party," which, many a time, had meant shouldering a gun? And a loose woman was to be allowed to ruin the House of Brull, which for thirty years had been putting every cent it owned into politics, for the

Meekly he had promised never to return to the Blue House, never to call aga

aling oranges from the orchards. There he was, a man whose name was on the lips of the whole county, and who at any moment might be invested with authority from the people, thus realizing the life-long dream of his father! But the sight of a woman in the fields,

, he asked himself what hope had led him to disob

her comrade the least repulsive among a host of inferiors. Alas! How clearly he remembered and could again foresee the sceptical, cold smile with which his words were always re

t us to go on being friends, all right, but it's on condit

s, she had taken her seat at the piano and begun one of her divine songs,

appealing eyes, his words of amorous adoration, seemed

ove. I know men too well! But even if anyone were to

this terrible amigo in skirts, and indifferent as well to the confl

lliancy of mind with which she had dazzled him-a poor country boy-she was only an adventuress who had made her way over half the globe from one pair of arms to another. Well, in that case, it would be

at might be judged defects; and he would taste the joy of duty well done when,

sense of being treated as a comrade by celebrities, whose names his father had always mentioned with bated breath; the "honorable" always written before his name; all Alcira speaking to him with affectionate familiarity; this rubbing elbows, on the benches of the conservative majority, with a battali

sleep relaxed the will to forget, which his vigilance kept at painful tension, that blue house, the green, diabolical eyes of its principal denizen, that pa

least, his mother would never learn. And he gave himself up to the imagina

ormidable as he had thought. Who could tell whether, when he went back-changed as he felt himself to be by his new experiences-it w

oor one afternoon at the opening of the session, when only the president, the sergeant-at-arms, and a few reporters asleep in the press-gallery, were present, and, with his lunch rising in his throat f

ests," the local weekly and party organ called him. And that morning, as he stepped off the train, the deputy, deaf to the Royal March and

earful of hostile gossip; of the demagogues who had thronged the doors of the cafes that morning, making fun of the demonstration in his honor; but all his scruples vanished at sight

her side of the approach to the house was a tangle of tall rose-bushes on whic

afael could hear the sound of a piano-the keys barely touched by the player's f

se best work was still unknown," as she said in the cant she had learned from the critics, alluding t

nd of his footsteps break in upon that melody which seemed to be roc

muring palms, the same rubblework benches with seats and backs of flowered tile that h

window he could see a patch of silk; a woman'

een scratching about in sand of the drive, scampered off cackling with fright. The m

l that Rafael saw was a pair of eyes-green eyes, that

a warm, a sonorous, soprano voic

burn hair that seemed to crown her with a helmet of old gold,

ve heard all about your triumphs; the music and the tumult reached even to our deser