"But how much that child knows!... How brilliant he is!"

And some old woman would add, sententiously:

"Bernarda, take good care of the child; don't let him use his brain so
much. It's bad for him. See how peaked he looks!..."

He finished his preparatory education with the Dominicans, taking the
leading rôle in all the plays given in the tiny theatre of the friars,
and always with a place in the first line on prize days. The Party organ
dedicated an annual article to the scholastic prodigies of the "gifted
son of our distinguished chief don Ramón Brull, the country's hope, who
already merits title as the shining light of the future!"

When Rafael, escorted by his mother and half a dozen women who had
witnessed the exercises, would come home, gleaming with medals and his
arms full of diplomas, he would stoop and kiss his father's hard,
bristly hand; and that claw would caress the boy's head and
absent-mindedly sink into the old man's vest pocket--for don Ramón
expected to pay for all welcome favors.

"Very good," the hoarse voice would murmur. "That's the way I like to
see you do ...Here's a _duro_."

And not till the following year would the boy again know what a caress
from his father meant. On certain occasions, playing in the _patio_, he
had surprised the austere old man gazing at him fixedly, as if trying to
foresee his future.