his stupid questions filled him with hot shame.

Without replying to the "good-evening" from the recluse and his family,
he started down the mountain, in hopes of meeting the woman again,
somewhere, some time, he knew not when nor how. The heir of don Ramón,
the hope of the District, strode furiously on, his arms aquiver with a
nervous tremor. And aggressively, menacingly, addressing his own ego as
though it were a henchman cringing terror-stricken in front of him, he
muttered:

"You imbecile!... You lout!... You peasant! You provincial ass! You ...
rube!"




IV


Doña Bernarda did not suspect the reason why her son rose on the
following morning pale, and with dark rings under his eyes, as if he had
spent a bad night. Nor could his political friends guess, that
afternoon, why in such fine weather, Rafael should come and shut himself
up in the stifling atmosphere of the Club.

When he came in, a crowd of noisy henchmen gathered round him to discuss
all over again the great news that had been keeping "the Party" in
feverish excitement for a week past: the Cortes were to be dissolved!
The newspapers had been talking of nothing else. Within two or three
months, before the close of the year at the latest, there would be a new