"What?"

"I'd go and see Catalina, You know that she does not like to be alone all
of the afternoon, and I think Teresa has gone out If I didn't have so much
to do I'd see her myself. Now, look out you don't make too much noise.
Catalina has a terrible headache today."

"All right. I'm off!" I said.

The idea of visiting my oldest sister never made me very happy in those
days. In fart, I hardly ever entered her room because it bored me terribly
to be in the company of such a disagreeable invalid.

I remembered the time when Catalina was the liveliest and happiest person
in the whole house, but unfortunately all this had changed in an instant.
One day three years before, Catalina had fallen from the top of a high
cherry-tree which she had climbed against the advice of Teresa. She was
unconscious when we picked her up, and it seemed at first as if she would
die as a result of the fall. After six months of cruel suffering, however,
her youth had triumphed over death; but the big sister who had always been
as happy and as lively as a bird was gone from us, and in her place
remained a forlorn, unhappy girl with a poor twisted body, who at rare
intervals sallied from her room a few steps with the aid of her crutches.
Unfortunately her character had also suffered severely, for in spite of the
tenderness and solicitude of my father who sought to satisfy her slightest
desire, and in spite of the untiring care of Teresa and the patience and
sweetness of Rosa, Catalina's life was one long complaint. Her room, with
its white bed adorned with blue curtains and its magnificent view of the
fields and mountains, was the most beautiful in the whole house. A pair of
canaries sang for her in their respective corners; the finest fruits were