"Perfectly."
"There is no end to his discussions and arguments; I am astounded by the depth and acuteness of his remarks, though I feel that his knowledge is mixed up with a thousand misconceptions, from want of method and from his ignorance of the visible world."
"It could not be otherwise."
"But the strangest thing is that, carried away by his imagination—which is like a young Hercules fettered with chains within a dungeon, and struggling to burst its bonds and break down walls...."
"Good, very good, well said."
"His imagination, I was saying, cannot rest in the darkness of his sense, and strives to reach our world of daylight, making up for his want of sight by the boldness of its assumptions. Pablo has a wonderful spirit of enquiry, but it is like a noble bird whose wings are clipped. For some few days he has been almost delirious; he does not sleep and his passion for information has been almost madness. At all hours of the day he asks for some new book, and at every pause he makes the keenest observations, but with such a mixture of simple innocence, that he makes me laugh. He asserts and maintains the absurdest things, and if I contradict him—I am really afraid of his going out of his mind—of his brain softening. If you could only see how melancholy and how disputatious he sometimes is. He takes up an idea and, come what may, it is impossible to get it out of his head. Now, for some days, he has had a fixed idea, which is as touching as it is preposterous. He will have it that Nela is pretty."
They all laughed, and Nela turned scarlet.
"That Nela is pretty!" exclaimed Teodoro kindly. "Well, and so she is."
"Oh! sweetly pretty, particularly with that moustache!" said Sofía.