"No—no. I do not hate it; on the contrary, I want to find it!"
"A pretty way you were going to work to look for it!"
"I thought that when you were dead you would have everything you could not get here. If not, why is death always, always calling us to come? I have dreams, and when I dream I see all who are dead happy and at peace."
"You believe in dreams?"
"Yes, Señor.—I look at the trees and the rocks that I have seen here ever since I was born, and in their face...."
"Come, come—the trees and rocks have faces?"
"Yes—everything that is lovely can see and speak.—And they say to me: 'Come to us—die, and you will live quite happy.'"
"What a lamentable fancy!" Golfin muttered to himself. "A perfectly pagan spirit!"
And he added aloud:
"But if you want to live, why did you not accept Florentina's offer? I come back to the same question."