thrills would pass over his body like light exhalations, bubbling up
from the slime that is sleeping in the depths of all infancy and coming
to the surface during adolescence.

His father guessed in part this imaginary life upon seeing his pet
plays and readings.

"Ah, comedian!... Ah, play-actor!... You are like your godfather."

He used to say this with an ambiguous smile in which were equally
mingled his contempt for useless idealism and his respect for the
artist--a respect similar to the veneration that the Arabs feel for the
demented, believing their insanity to be a gift from God.

Doña Cristina was very anxious that this only son, as spoiled and
coddled as though he were a Crown Prince, should become a priest. To
see him intone his first Mass!... Then a canon; then a prelate! Who
knew if perhaps when she was no longer living, other women might not
admire him when preceded by a cross of gold, trailing the red state
robe of a cardinal-archbishop, and surrounded by a robed staff--envying
the mother who had given birth to this ecclesiastical magnate!...

In order to guide the inclinations of her son she had installed a
chapel in one of the empty rooms of the great old house. Ulysses'
school companions on free afternoons would hasten thither, doubly
attracted by the enchantment, of "playing priest" and by the generous
refreshment that Doña Cristina used to prepare for all the parish
clergy.

This solemnity would begin with the furious pealing of some bells