“Horrors!” exclaimed the sick girl, with a little cry. “What if the Amézegas were to see me—they who never ride except in a jaunting car or a brougham!”
The two friends would go sometimes to the Montagne Verte, sometimes to the Source des Dames, sometimes to the intermittent spring of Vesse. The Montagne Verte is the highest point in the neighborhood of Vichy. The hill is covered with vegetation, but scrubby vegetation, scarcely rising above the surface of the earth, so that from a distance it looked to them like the head of a giant covered with short and very thick hair. When they reached the summit, they ascended to the mirador, and looked through the great field-glass, examining the immense panorama that lay spread before them. The gentle slopes, clad with vines, descended to the Allier, which wound in the distance like an enormous blue snake. Far away the chain of the Fonez raised its snow-capped hills, the giants of Auvergne, vaporous and gray, looked like cloud-phantoms; the castle of Borbon Busset emerged from the mists, its seignorial towers casting into the shade the peaceful palace of Randan, with all the disdain of a legitimate Bourbon for the degenerate branch of Orleans. Lucía’s favorite excursion was to the Source des Dames; a narrow footpath, shaded by leafy trees, gently followed the course of the Sichon, pausing, when the river paused to form a shallow lake, and then continuing its winding course along the border of the tranquil stream. At every step some picturesque accident broke the monotony of the rows of poplars and elms,—now a lavatory, now a little house standing on the river’s brink, now a dam, now a mill, now a duck pond. The mill, in particular, seemed as if it might have been placed there by some landscape painter for artistic effect. Ancient and moss-grown, it rested on wooden posts that were slowly decaying in the water; in the center of the structure the wheel gleamed like an enormous eye shining in the brown and wrinkled forehead of a Cyclops. The drops of liquid silver that leaped from spoke to spoke with every revolution one might fancy tears dropping from the immense eye, and the groan to which the massive wheel gave utterance as it turned completed the resemblance, imitating the breathing of the monster. Through the ill-joined planks of a bridge, boldly thrown across the very bend of the cataract which formed the dam, could be caught glimpses of the water foaming and roaring below. In the dam some half-dozen ducks were lazily paddling, and innumerable sparrows flew hither and thither under the irregular eaves of the roof, while in the dark aperture of one of the irregularly placed windows grew a pot of petunias. Lucía loved to sit and watch the mill from the bank opposite, lulled by the monotonous snore of the wheel and the gentle plash of the water. Pilar preferred the intermittent spring, which procured her the emotions of which her sickly organization was so avid. The spring was reached by a pleasant path, and from the bridge could be obtained a fine view of the surrounding country.
The Allier is a broad and deep stream, but at this season of the year its waters are greatly diminished by the summer draughts, the channel being almost dry, except in the deepest parts, leaving the sandy bed of the river exposed to view in broad white bands. In places, dark rocks intercepted the current, forming eddies where the water foamed angrily and then went on its way, calm and placid as before. Beyond stretched an open plain. Wide meadows, with here and there cows grazing and sheep browsing, were bounded on the horizon line by pale green poplars, straight, with pointed tops, like the artificial trees of the toy sets. The osiers, on the contrary, were squat and round, looking like balls of somber verdure dotting the meadow. In the distance could be seen the summit of the Montagne Verte, outlined in pure dark green against the sky with a certain hardness and distinctness, that reminded one of a Flemish landscape. On the river bank the right arms of the washerwomen, rising and falling like the arms of marionettes could be seen, and the monotonous sound of the bat beating the linen could be heard. Carts laden with sand and gravel slowly ascended the rough slope of the bank, and then as slowly crossed the bridge, the team bathed in sweat, the bells tinkling at rare intervals. Auvergnese peasant women walked along, dressed in dull-colored garments, wearing the straw panier above the white coif, guarding their cows, whose udders, swelling with milk, swung as they went, and which, looking with melancholy gaze at the passers-by, would suddenly start on an oblique run, lasting some ten seconds, after which they resumed their former slow and resigned pace. At the corner of the bridge a poor man, decently clad, and with the air of a soldier, begged for charity with only a supplicating inflexion of the voice and a sorrowful contraction of the brow.
In proportion as they left the bridge behind them, penetrating more deeply into the shade of the road leading to Vesse, the heart of Lucía, who felt herself now really in the country, would grow lighter. The trees here were wilder, less straight and symmetrical than in Vichy; the path less even and more natural; the grass borders less trim, and the villas and houses on either side of the road less neatly kept and handsome. No zealous hand removed the dry leaves that formed a natural carpet for the ground. At intervals was to be seen some shed, in whose dark shadow gleamed the agricultural implements, and the rural and pungent odor of the turned-up earth penetrated the lungs, healthy and strengthening as the wholesome vegetables growing in the neighboring gardens. The distance from the bridge to the spring was short. Arrived there they crossed the hall of the little house, entered the garden, and directed their steps toward the vine-covered arbor containing the fountain. They found the basin empty; from the brass tube of the jet not a drop of water flowed. But Pilar knew beforehand the precise time at which the singular phenomenon would occur, and made her calculations with exactness. During the interval before the water made its appearance, she would remain leaning over the basin, her heart palpitating, silently listening, with her right hand held like an ear-trumpet to her ear.
“He is coming; I hear him hissing,” Lucía would say, as if they were speaking of some monster.
“You will see that he won’t come for five minutes yet,” Pilar would answer in a tone of conviction.
“I tell you he is coming, my dear; he is sputtering now.”
“Let me listen. No, no! It is the noise of the wind shaking the trees. You are dreaming.”
Then a short pause of complete silence would follow—a tragic interval.
“Hist! now, now!” the sick girl would cry, clapping her hands; “now it is coming, and in earnest!”