“Better than there, foolish girl. This is the land that produces bread and wine.”
“Holy Mother! It seems impossible that people could live contented in that parched land. And then, never to see the sea! When you look at the sea, it seems the same as if you were looking at the grandeur of God. Isn’t it true that only God could create a thing so grand as the sea, and all that comes out of it? Those pretty little shells; so many, many kinds of fishes, the sardines, that are the maintenance of the poor.”
“You talk like a book, Esclavita. I am not surprised that your devoted Nuño Rasura——”
“Who?”
“Señor de Febrero, child.”
“The old man with the crutch?”
“Yes. Well, he says that you are a treasure. You must know that he is head over ears in love with you.”
“Nonsense. Don’t make sport of me.”
“I am in earnest. Why, he wants to take you to his own house. They say it will end by his offering you his lily-white hand and his lame foot. He has conceived for you an insensate passion which will carry him to the tomb in the flower of his youth, in the smiling age of illusion, before he has reached his eighty-sixth April.”
“Well, well! Poor man, he hasn’t even the use of his legs.”