"Well, then," he went on, "last night he was reading me some pages about Beauty. The author, in discussing Beauty, said that it was the outcome and radiance of goodness and truth, with many other ingenious comparisons so well thought out and expressed, that it was a pleasure to listen."
"And was that book," said Nela, anxious to prove herself equal to the occasion, "like one father Centeno has.... The thousand and I don't know how many nights?"
"No, no, goose-cap; it is a book on Beauty in the abstract, you will not understand—on ideal Beauty—and yet you must understand that there is a sort of Beauty which cannot be seen, nor touched, nor perceived by any of our senses."
"For example, like the Virgin Mary," interrupted Nela, "whom we cannot see nor touch, because her pictures are not herself, but only her likeness."
"You are quite right; it is just like that. Thinking over this, my father shut the book, and talked of one thing and another. We spoke then of beauty of form, and my father said: 'This unfortunately you can never understand.' But I said I could. I said that there could only be one type, and that would apply to all."
Nela, caring little enough for such subtleties, had taken the flowers out of her companion's hands, and was arranging their colors to her taste.
"I have a clear idea about this," the blind lad went on, vehemently, "an idea that I have been quite in love with for some months. Yes, I am sure, quite sure of it; I want no eyes to see that, and I said to my father, I have an ideal of enchanting beauty, a type which includes every possible perfection, and that type is Nela. My father began to laugh, and said 'yes.'"
Nela turned as scarlet as a poppy, and could not answer a word. During a short spasm of terror and pain, she felt as if the blind boy were looking at her.
"Yes, you are the most perfect beauty imaginable," Pablo went on, eagerly. "How could it be possible that your goodness, and innocence, and freshness and grace—your imagination, your sweet and lovely soul, which have all combined to enliven and comfort my dark and melancholy life—how, I say, could it be possible that they should not be embodied in a person as lovely? Nela, Nela," and his voice trembled with anxiety.—"Tell me—are you not beautiful—very pretty?"
Nela was silent; she instinctively put her hands up, and stuck into her hair some of the half-faded flowers she had gathered in the meadows.