party adherents, who followed him about with idolatrous eyes. If the old
man could only have come back to life that morning to see how his son
had been acclaimed by the entire city!...

A barely perceptible sound like the buzzing of two flies broke the deep
silence of the mansion. The deputy looked toward the only balcony window
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! And,
lest they should call him, and suddenly deprive him of his keen
enjoyment at being alone, he left the _patio_ and went out into the
street.

It was only the month of March; but at two in the afternoon the air was
almost uncomfortably hot. Accustomed to the cold wind of Madrid and to
the winter rains, Rafael inhaled, with a sense of voluptuous pleasure,
the warm breeze that wafted the perfume of the blossoming orchards
through the narrow lanes of the ancient town.

Once, years before, he had been in Italy on a Catholic pilgrimage,
entrusted by his mother to the care of a priest from Valencia, who would
not think of returning to Spain without paying 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 houses. With all the economy of a city built
on an island, Alcira rears its edifices higher and higher as its
population grows, leaving just enough space free for the bare needs of
traffic.

The streets were deserted. The noisy, orchard workers who had welcomed
Rafael had gone back to the fields again. All the idlers had fled to the