The house was also neither Spanish nor European in style. It was built in Chinese style, with little pagodas rising upon every side. I do not know what connection these little towers had with Babel, the scene of the confusion of tongues, but I must tell you that in the neighborhood the fantastic building went by the name of "Don Rosendo's Babel."
It was magnificently furnished, and wanting in none of the comforts and refinements afforded by modern civilization to the rich. It had a splendid room, decorated in Persian style, a bathroom, a large dining-room, fairly well frescoed, and several beautiful little airy apartments, where the light penetrated through colored windows.
So Gonzalo and Venturita repaired to this nest two hours after their union had been solemnized. On their way thither they had talked without embarrassment on different subjects. The young man had imprinted several kisses on the cheeks of the girl, as when they were betrothed; but on arriving at the "Babel," and finding themselves alone in the Persian chamber, he was overwhelmed with confusion and awkwardness.
He tried to find subjects of conversation, but he failed in the attempt.
Venturita scarcely answered him, but she looked at him with an expression of mingled passion and coquetry.
"Look here, stop—stop talking that nonsense. Leave off and give me a kiss," she added laughing, and patting his mouth with her primrose hand. Then Gonzalo colored deeply, and kissed her passionately.
His passion of these first days bordered on madness. Venturita, with her singular beauty, the languid, voluptuous expression of her eyes, and her invincible tendency to recline, was a perfect odalisque. But unlike one in being merely a beautiful animal, she was full of a mischievous spirit that bubbled forth at every moment in rather equivocal jokes and meaning puns, so that Gonzalo was always roaring with merriment, in ignorance of the danger of that mood between husband and wife. The life they led was very sedentary, for Ventura did not like going out; the sun gave her headache and the cold hurt her throat. She spent much time in the adornment of her person, and changed her dresses as often as if she were in Madrid, so that the greater part of the day was spent in her dressing-room. This did not displease Gonzalo; for, on the contrary, when he saw her appear looking lovely and graceful, exhaling a penetrating perfume like a tropical flower, he was transported with delight, and a tremor of passion shook his whole being as he thought that that exquisite work of nature was his—entirely his.
Nevertheless, everything was not quite like what he had imagined it would be. Sometimes the young bride, half in earnest, half in joke, shut herself up in her room and there spent three or four hours without permitting him to enter, in spite of his affectionate entreaties through the keyhole.
"I rob you of the sight of me for some time," she would say afterward, laughing, "to increase your wish to be with me."
And, in fact, these coquetries augmented the young man's passion to such an extent that it became quite a madness. When the beauty felt inclined, they walked in the grounds, but they did not go far. On arriving at one of the few shady, cool retreats which had escaped the reforming hand of Don Rosendo, the girl liked to sit down—but neither upon the grass nor the rustic seats, so Gonzalo had to run and fetch an armchair for her from the house.