Nieves joined in the laughter of the two sisters. It could not be denied that this simplicity was very amusing. Nieves seemed to be in a new world in which routine, the worn-out conventionalities of Madrid society, did not exist. True, such noisy and ingenuous diversions might at times verge on impropriety or coarseness, but sometimes they were really entertaining. From the moment the guests rose from table in the afternoon nothing was thought of but frolic and fun. Teresa had proposed to herself not to allow Tropiezo to eat a meal in peace, and with the utmost dexterity she would catch flies on the wing, which she would throw slyly into his soup, or she would pour vinegar into his glass instead of wine, or rub pitch on his napkin so that it might stick to his mouth. For the arch-priest they had another trick—they would draw him on to talk of ceremonies, a subject on which he loved to expatiate, and when his attention was engaged, take away his plate slyly, which was like tearing a piece of his heart out of his breast.
At night, in the parlor of the turbid mirrors, in which were the piano and the rocking-chairs, a gay company assembled; they sang fragments of El Juramento, and El Grumete; they played at hide-and-seek, and, without hiding, played brisea with malilla counters; when they grew tired of cards, they had recourse to forfeits, to mind-reading, and other amusements. And the frolicsome rustic nature once aroused, they passed on to romping games—fool in the middle, hoodman-blind, and others which have the zest imparted by physical exercise—shouts, pushes and slaps.
Then they would retire to their rooms, still excited by their sports, and this was the hour when their merriment was at its height, when they played the wildest pranks; when they fastened lighted tapers to the bodies of crickets and sent them under the bedroom doors; when they took the slats out of Tropiezo's bedstead so that when he lay down he might fall to the ground and bruise his ribs. In the halls could be heard smothered bursts of laughter and stealthy footsteps, white forms would be seen scurrying away, and doors would be hastily locked and barricaded with articles of furniture, while from behind them a mellow voice could be heard crying:
"They are coming!"
"Fasten the door well, girls! Don't open, not if the king himself were to knock!"
XVII.
Segundo was the last of the guests to arrive at Las Vides. As he cared but little for games and as Nieves did not take any very active part in them either, they would often have found themselves thrown for society upon each other had it not been for Victorina, who, from the moment Segundo appeared, never left her mother's side, and Elvira Molende who, from the very instant of his arrival, clung to the poet like the ivy to the wall, directing on him a battery of sighs and glances, and treating him to sentimental confidences and rhapsodies sweet enough to surfeit a confectioner's boy. From the moment in which Segundo set foot in Las Vides, Elvira lost all her animation, and assumed a languishing and romantic air, which made her cheeks appear hollower and the circles under her eyes deeper than ever. Her form acquired the melancholy droop of the willow and, giving up sports and pranks, she devoted herself exclusively to the Swan.
As it was moonlight, and the evenings were enjoyable out of doors, as soon as the sun had set, and the labors of the day were ended, and the vintagers assembled for a dance, some of the guests would assemble together also in the garden, generally at the foot of a high wall bordered with leafy camellias, or they would stop and sit down for a chat at some inviting spot on their way home from a walk. Elvira knew by heart a great many verses, both good and bad, generally of a melancholy kind—sentimental and elegiac; she was familiar with all the flowers of poetry, all the tender verses which constituted the poetic wealth of the locality, and uttered by her thin lips, in the silvery tones of her gentle voice, with the soft accents of her native land, the Galician verses, like an Andalusian moral maxim in the sensual mouth of a gypsy, had a peculiar and impressive beauty—the sensibility of a race crystallized in a poetic gem, in a tear of love. These plaintive verses were interrupted at times by mocking bursts of laughter, as the gay sounds of the castanets strike in on the melancholy notes of the bagpipes. The poems in dialect acquired a new beauty, their freshness and sylvan aroma seemed to augment by being recited by the soft tones of a woman's voice, on the edge of a pine wood and under the shadow of a grapevine, on a serene moonlight night; and the rhyme became a vague and dreamy melopœia, like that of certain German ballads; a labial music interspersed with soft diphthongs, tender ñ's, x's of a more melodious sound than the hissing Castilian ch. Generally, after the recitations came singing. Don Eugenio, who was a Borderer, knew some Portuguese fados, and Elvira was unrivaled in her rendering of the popular and melancholy song of Curros, which seems made for Druidical nights, for nights illuminated by the solemn light of the moon.