The next day he was in a state of great prostration, but his vigorous nature triumphed over everything. He begged to have a glass of water and when he saw it, he exclaimed: "I feel as I were drinking at the mere sight of water."
His expressions were equally vivid and picturesque about everything he saw which struck his fancy strongly. After correcting the defective sphericity of the eye by means of glasses, which he tried one after another, Golfin began to direct his attention to the differences and combinations of colors, and the young man's sound mind and taste never failed in distinguishing the ugly from the beautiful. Indeed, he felt these two attributes as two absolute and distinct ideas, without connecting them in any way with any notion of utility or, on the other hand, of goodness. A butterfly which flew by accident into his room enchanted him, but an ink-bottle he thought simply horrible, though his father explained to him that it could not be otherwise, since its use was to hold ink to write with. When he was shown two prints, one of the Crucifixion, and one of Galatea riding in a shell and escorted by Tritons and Nymphs, he preferred the second—which was a great scandal to Florentina, who promised herself that she would teach him to hold sacred things far above everything profane. He watched their faces with the keenest attention, and the wonderful coincidence of facial expression with language astonished him excessively. When he saw the maids and other women about the place, he was greatly annoyed if they were ugly or commonplace; indeed, his cousin's beauty made him indifferent to any other woman. In spite of this he wanted to see them all; his curiosity was like a raging thirst which nothing could satisfy. Every day he was disappointed at never seeing Nela; but he was so fond of Florentina that he could not bear her to leave him for a moment.
On the third day Golfin said to him: "You have now made acquaintance with a great many things—the marvels of this visible world. Now—you must see yourself."
He brought a mirror, and Pablo looked in it.
"That is I!" he exclaimed with simple admiration. "It is difficult to believe it. How have I come inside that hard still sheet of water? What a wonderful thing glass is! It seems as if it could not be true that men made that stony atmosphere.—My word! but I am not an ugly fellow!—What do you say cousin? And you, when you look in this, do you see yourself as pretty as you are? No, impossible. Look up into the sky and you will find your image there. You may believe you see an angel when you only look at yourself!"
That evening, when he was alone with her and she was giving him some little help he needed as an invalid, Pablo said to her:
"Cousin, my father read me, I remember, a passage in history about Christopher Columbus who discovered a New World, which no European had ever seen before. That navigator opened the eyes of the Old World, so that they saw another and more beautiful one. I cannot help thinking of him as a man like Teodoro Golfin, and of Europe as a blind man to whom America and its wonders were like a revelation of light. Well, and I have seen a New World.—You are my America, you are that first and lovely island where Columbus set foot on land. He never saw the continent, with its vast forests and immense rivers, and I too perhaps have not yet seen what is loveliest of all...." He broke off and sat sunk in thought; then presently he asked:
"Where is Nela?"
"I cannot think what has come over the poor child," said Florentina. "I suppose she does not wish to see you."