"How good your wife must be, Rivera!"
"What makes you think so?"
"It is enough to see her face."
"Yes; she is very simpática," said one of the girls, with a condescending tone.
The guests formed groups, and were conversing gayly. Gómez de la Floresta was burning with impatience.
At last Miguel, not so much to gratify him, as to have everything pass off in good form, invited him to begin the reading of the play: he took his stand by the side of the fireplace, under a gas-fixture; the people scattered themselves at their convenience on the chairs and sofas; a servant brought on a waiter various refreshments, and placed them as well as he could on the mantel-piece near the poet.
Gómez de la Floresta coughed two or three times, cast a troubled glance over his audience, and then began the reading of his drama, which was entitled The Serpent's Hole, and was cast in the time of Carlos II.,[35] the Bewitched.
As we know the author, there is no need of saying that the lyric note prevailed in it; that it was couched in sonorous verse, that it abounded in elegant and exotic adjectives; in writing it he had put under contribution the beautiful and picturesque phrases of our Esmaltes y Camáfeos,[36] of Théophile Gautier, and the no less beautiful but more spontaneous ones of our own Zorilla.
The result was a composition of beautiful words in diapason, producing a notable musical effect, alternating with some phrase or sentence à la Victor Hugo. Not a single character said anything in a straightforward manner: instead of telling who they were and whence they came, they drowned themselves by anticipation in a river or cascade of Oriental pearls, moonbeams, dewdrops, perfumes of Arabia, sunsets and sapphires and emeralds, so that the thread of the discourse was lost, and no one could gather the least idea of its character and tendency.
When he was half through the act, the Countess de Losilla and her two daughters came in, later than all the rest, since they lived the nearest of all. Their entrance for a few moments interrupted the reading; all arose, and Maximina hastened to greet them.