“Nothing of the kind. It was very distinguished-looking. What do you know of those matters?”
“I? Nothing,” answered Lucía, smiling.
“The gown of the Swede must have been lovely—cream-color and heliotrope! I like the combination. But how she is making herself talked about with Albares—a married man! Good need they both have of the waters!”
“Why, I heard your brother say that she does not take the slightest notice of him.”
“Bah! unless you would have them pay the town-crier to publish it! Albares is a fool, inside and out, who loves to attract attention. The fact is that every one in Vichy is talking about them.”
Lucía remained thoughtful, her gaze fixed on the flower-knots of the park, that looked like enameled medallions fastened on a green satin skirt. They were formed of several varieties of the coleus; those in the center had lance-shaped and brilliant leaves of dark brown, purplish red, brick-red, red of the color of the turkey’s comb, rose-red. At the edge, a row of ruins of Italy, showed their bluish disks against the fresh vivid green of the grass. The larches and the pines formed, here and there, in some retired corner of the park, woody, Swiss-like clumps, their innumerable branches drooping languidly to the ground. Through the light foliage of the majestic catalpas streamed the last rays of the setting sun, and splashes of golden light danced here and there upon the fine sanded walk. The place had the mysterious and secluded air of a temple. A solemn, poetic silence prevailed, which it almost seemed a sacrilege to break by a word or movement.
The visitors had begun to leave the park, the light crunching of the gravel under their feet sounding fainter and fainter in the distance. But the two friends were in the habit of remaining to “lock up the place” as the saying is, for it was precisely at the sunset hour that Lucía thought the park most beautiful in this melancholy autumnal season. The dying rays of the sun, now low in the western sky, fell almost horizontally on the grassy meads, lighting them up with hues like liquid gold. The dark cones of the fir trees dotted this ocean of light in which their shadows were disproportionately prolonged. The plane trees and the Indian chestnuts were dropping their leaves, and from time to time a burr would fall to the ground with a hard, dull sound, and opening allow the shining chestnut to roll out. In the large flower-knots, which contrasted with the green of the grass, the pale eglantine dropped its fragile petals at the faintest breeze, the verbenas trailed themselves languidly, as if weary of life, their capriciously growing stalks breaking the oval outlines of the bed; the sweet milfoil raised its shower of blue stars, and the rare coleuses displayed the exotic tints and the metallic luster of their spotted leaves, resembling the scales of a serpent, white with black spots, green with flesh-colored veins, dark amaranth striped with copperish red. A profound thrill, precursor of winter, ran through all nature, who seemed to have adorned herself in her richest attire for her death. Thus, the virgin vine was arrayed in her splendid purple robe and the white poplar raised coquettishly its plumy white crest; thus the coralline decked itself with chains and rings of blood-red coral and the zinnias ran through the whole scale of vivid colors in their broidered petticoats. The striped maize shook its green and white-striped silken skirts with melodious rustle, and far away on the edge of the meadow, bathed in sunlight, a few tender saplings bent their youthful heads. The dead leaves covered the paths in such abundance that Lucía felt with delight her foot sink up to the ankle in the soft carpet. The contact of the edge of her gown with the leaves produced a quick murmuring sound, like the hurried breathing of some one following close behind; and, a prey to childish terror, she would turn back her head now and again and smile at herself when she saw that her fears were illusory. There were many varieties of leaves, some dark, decayed, almost rotted; others dry, brittle, shriveled; others yellow or still greenish, moist with the sap of the branch through which they had drawn their life. The carpet lay thicker in the shady spots by the borders of the lake, whose surface rippled like undulating glass at the light contact of the evening breeze, breaking into innumerable wavelets, that dashed unceasingly against one another.
Tall weeping-willows bent with a melancholy air above the water, that reflected back their tremulous branches, among which could be seen the disk of the sun, whose rays, concentrated by this species of camera obscura, struck the eye with the force of arrows. In a labyrinth in the lake, an enormous clump of malangas displayed their exuberant tropical vegetation, their gigantic fan-like leaves motionless in the still air. Swans and ducks paddled—the former, with their accustomed fantastic grace, swaying their long necks, the latter, quacking harshly,—toward the bank, the moment Lucía and Pilar appeared, in quest of bits of bread, which they swallowed greedily, raising their tails in the air as each mouthful went down. The islet, with its pine tree, cast a mysterious shade over the surface of the lake. A sheaf of reeds raised their slender forms and by their side the sharp poas shook their brushes of chestnut velvet.
A delightful coolness rose from the water. The landscape breathed a tender melancholy, a gentle drowsiness, the repose of mother nature, fatigued with the continued production of the summer, and preparing for her winter sleep. Lucía was no longer a child; external objects now spoke to her eloquently, and she began to listen to their voice. The scene before her plunged her into vague meditation. Her soul seemed to detach itself from her body, as the leaf detaches itself from the branch, and like it to wander without aim or object, yielding itself up to the delight of annihilation, to the sweetness of non-existence. And how pleasant death must be, a death like that of the leaves,—a gentle loosening of the bonds of life, the passage to more beautiful regions, the satisfaction of the mysterious longings hidden in the recesses of the soul! When ideas like these thronged to her mind, a bird, perhaps, would fly down from some tree; she would hear the fluttering of its wings in the air; it would hop along the sanded walk, ruffling its feathers among the dead leaves; she would approach, and suddenly it would fly away and go to perch on the topmost branch of the murmuring acacias.