“Don’t you remember it at all, Señorito?” she asked.
“Well, I will tell you. Searching in my memory I fancy I can see a great many green fields and a rough sea, very green, too. But it is all very confused. Do you know what I can remember most distinctly? A sailor taking me in his arms to bathe me; I fancy I can see him now before me, as black as pitch and smelling of sardines.”
“And why don’t you go back there to see it all again?”
“This year it will go hard with me or I will persuade mamma to go. We will pass through Marineda and Compostela. We shall see the provinces of Pontevedra and Orense. We will feast upon oysters and lobsters. It must be like Paradise there. We will take you with us. You shall see.”
“Me?” said the girl, shaking her head. “Me? Ah, no; you will see that you will not take me.”
“Why not, silly girl?”
“When my heart tells me anything it always comes true, and my heart tells me that my eyes shall never see home again.”
“Be still, bird of ill omen! Let me get through with the worry of the examinations and you shall see. So it is a beautiful place, eh? Come, tell me all about it? What is it like? They say it is the loveliest province in all Spain.”
“Or in all the world; I have already told you so,” Esclavita answered, with profound conviction. “If you were to see the rivers of Pontevedra you would be struck dumb with admiration. If you were to see them casting the nets for sardines!”
“It must be delightful. You are already making me long to see it. And the pilgrimages with their drums and bagpipes, what do you say of them?”