In effect, a strange gurgling noise was heard, followed by a shrill whistle, and then a jet of boiling water, which emitted an intolerable odor of sulphur, rose straight, swift, and foaming to the very roof of the high arbor. A thick steam enveloped the basin, and diffused itself through the atmosphere, now filled with the sickening odor of the sulphur. Thus the stream rose impetuously until the force below began to diminish when, with the fury of impotence, it issued in wild leaps, like the convulsions of an epileptic, writhing in anger, sputtering with desperate articulation; at last it would fall down, vanquished and powerless, sending forth only at rare intervals a thin stream, like the last flashes of a dying taper. Its agony ended with two or three hiccoughs from the tube at whose orifice the stream would appear, but without sufficient force to emerge. The spring would not now flow again for ten hours at least.
Lucía and Pilar would often dispute together about the termination of the phenomenon as they had done about its beginning.
“It has stopped. He is going to sleep. Good-night, sir,” Lucía would exclaim with a wave of the hand.
“No, child. He will make his appearance three or four times yet before he goes to rest.”
“He can’t.”
“He can. You shall see; he will give a few little spits more, as the servant of a cousin of mine, an artillery officer says. Hush, listen, listen to him still snoring! One, two, three, now he is spitting!”
“Four, five, six! There, he won’t come back again. The poor fellow is tired out.”
“No, he won’t come again now; he has given his last gasp.”
Returning, the friends would find the bridge more animated than they had found it on going to the spring. This was the hour at which the townspeople and the bathers returned from their expeditions into the country, and many equestrians were to be seen hastening to the town, displaying their riding-trousers and buttoned gaiters, against which gleamed brightly stirrup and spur. An occasional sociable, looking like a light canoe, proceeded on its way, drawn by its handsome pair of well-matched ponies, with lustrous coats and clean hoofs, proud of their elegant burden. Hasty glimpses could be caught of wide straw hats, profusely adorned with lilacs and poppies; of light gowns, laces, and ribbons; light-colored muslin parasols; gay countenances, gay with the gayety of good society, which is always set in a lower key than, the gayety of common people. This latter was enjoyed by the pedestrians, for the most part happy family parties, who wore contentedly the livery of golden mediocrity or even of plain poverty; the father, obese, gray-haired, red-faced, with gray or maroon coat, carrying on his shoulder the long fishing pole; the daughter wearing a dark woolen gown, a little black straw hat adorned with a single flower, carrying on her left arm the little basket containing the flies and other piscatorial appurtenances, and leading by the right hand the little brother who had outgrown his trousers and jacket and who showed the ankles of his boots, proudly holding the pail in which floated the foolish fishes, victims of the death-dealing pastime of his father.
Lucía took such delight in the view of the bridge and the river that she retarded her steps in passing them in order to prolong the pleasure. The green curtain of the new park stretched before her view. The whole of this beautiful garden was a marsh, until the massive dykes erected by Napoleon III to prevent the inundations following the rise of the Allier, and the draining of the ground, transformed it into a paradise. The choice trees growing in the fertile soil had for the most part tones intense and soft, like green plush; but some of them, now turning yellow, shone, in the light of the setting sun, like pyramids of golden filagree work. Others were reddish with a brick-like red, that, where the sun fell, showed carmine. The sick girl, as they returned to the town, liked to sit and rest awhile on one of the benches of the park. There were generally visitors there at this hour, and sometimes they would meet members of the Spanish colony, acquaintances of Perico or Miranda, with whom they would exchange salutations and the trivial phrases current in society. Sometimes, too, the rich Cubans, the de Amézegas, would flash like comets on their sight, with their extraordinary hats, their enormous parasols, and their fanciful adornments, always in the height of the fashion. Pilar could distinguish them a league away by their famous hats, impossible to confound with any other head-covering whatsoever. They resembled two large pudding dishes, completely covered with small, fine, red feathers and adorned each with a natural bird, a species of pheasant, artistically mounted with outspread wing, and head turned gracefully to one side. This strange semi-Indian ornament suited well the tropical pallor and flashing eyes of the two young Cubans. When they drew near, Lucía would give Pilar a push with her elbow, saying, with a touch of malice: