The first of these were ordinary rockets, without any novelty whatever—a trail of light, a dull report, and a shower of sparks. But soon came the surprises, novelties, and marvels of art. There were fireworks that exploded, separating into three or four cascades of light that vanished with fantastic swiftness in the depths of space; from others fell with mysterious slowness and noiselessness violet, green, and red lights, as if the angels had overturned in the skies a casket of amethysts, emeralds, and rubies. The lights descended slowly, like tears, and before they reached the ground suddenly went out. The prettiest were the rockets which sent down a rain of gold, a fantastic shower of sparks, a stream of drops of light as quickly lighted as extinguished. The delight of the crowd in the plaza, however, was greatest at the fireworks of three explosions and a snake. These were not without beauty; they exploded like simple rockets, sending forth a fiery lizard, a reptile which ran through the sky in serpentine curves, and then plunged suddenly into darkness.
The scene was now wrapped in darkness, now flooded with light, when the plaza would seem to rise to a level with the window, with its swarm of people, the patches of color of the booths and the hundreds of human faces turned upward, beaming with delight at this favorite spectacle of the Galicians, a race which has preserved the Celtic love and admiration for pyrotechnic displays, for brilliantly illuminated nights in which they find a compensation for the cloudy horizon of the day.
Nieves, too, was pleased by the sudden alternations of light and darkness, a faithful image of the ambiguous condition of her soul. When the firmament was lighted up she watched with admiration the bright luminaries that gave a Venetian coloring to these pleasant moments. When everything was again enveloped in darkness she ventured to look at the poet, without seeing him, however, for her eyes, dazzled by the fireworks, were unable to distinguish the outlines of his face. The poet, on his side, kept his eyes fixed persistently on Nieves, and he saw her flooded with light, with that rare and beautiful moonlight glow produced by fireworks, and which adds a hundredfold to the softness and freshness of the features. He felt a keen impulse to condense in one ardent phrase all that the time had now come for saying, and he bent toward her—and at last he pronounced her name!
"Nieves!"
"Well?"
"Had you ever seen fireworks like these before?"
"No; it is a specialty of this province. I like them greatly. If I were a poet like you I would say pretty things about them. Come, invent something, you."
"Like them happiness brightens our existence, for a few brief moments, Nieves—but while it brightens, while we feel it——"
Segundo inwardly cursed the high-sounding phrase that he found himself unable to finish. What nonsense he was talking! Would it not be better to bend down a little lower and touch with his lips——But what if she should scream? She would not scream, he would venture to swear. Courage!
In the balcony a great commotion was heard. Carmen Agonde called to Nieves: