recently founded convent, the poor Empress lived until the following
century, recalling the adventures of her melancholy destiny and seeing
in imagination the palace of golden mosaics on Lake Nicaea, the gardens
where "Vatacio" had wished to die under a purple tent, the gigantic
walls of Constantinople, and the arches of Saint Sophia, with its
hieratic galaxies of saints and crowned monarchs.

From all her journeys and glittering fortunes she had preserved but one
thing--a stone--the sole baggage that accompanied her upon disembarking
on the shore of Valencia. It was a fragment from Nicodemia that had
miraculously sent forth water for the baptism of Santa Barbara.

The notary used to point out this rough, sacred stone inlaid in a
baptismal font of Holy Water. Without ceasing to admire these historic
bits of knowledge, Ulysses, nevertheless, used to receive them with a
certain ingratitude.

"My godfather could explain things to me in a better way.... My
godfather knows more."

When surveying the chapel of Santa Barbara during the Mass, he used
always to turn his eyes away from the funeral chest. The thought of
those bones turned to dust filled him with repugnance. That Doña
Constanza did not exist for him. The one who was interesting to him was
the other one, a little further on who was painted in a small picture.
Doña Constanza had had leprosy--an infirmity that in those days was not
permitted to Empresses--so Santa Barbara had miraculously cured her
devotee. In order to perpetuate this event, Santa Barbara was depicted
on the canvas as a lady dressed in a full skirt and slashed sleeves,
and at her feet was the _basilisa_ in the dress of a Valencian peasant