The artist was afraid. He seemed to quail. But he met Ramón’s eyes. And instantly, that stillness of concentration came over him, like a trance. And then suddenly, out of the trance, he shot his arm aloft, and his fat, pale face took on an expression of peace, a noble, motionless transfiguration, the blue-grey eyes calm, proud, reaching into the beyond, with prayer. And though he stood in his blouse, with a rather pudgy figure and curly hair, he had the perfect stillness of nobility.
“It is good!” said Ramón, bowing his head.
The artist suddenly changed; Ramón held out his two hands, the artist took them in his two hands. Then he lifted Ramón’s right hand and placed the back of it on his brow.
“Adios!” said Ramón, taking his blouse again.
“Adios, señor!” said the artist.
And with a proud, white look of joy in his face, he turned again to his work.
Ramón visited the adobe house, its yard fenced with cane and overshadowed by a great mango tree, where Manuel and his wife and children, and two assistants, were spinning and weaving. Two little girls were assiduously carding white wool and brown wool under a cluster of banana trees: the wife and a young maiden were spinning fine, fine thread. On the line hung dyed wool, red, and blue, and green. And under the shed stood Manuel and a youth, weaving at two heavy hand-looms.
“How is it going?” called Don Ramón.
“Muy bien! Muy bien!” answered Manuel, with that curious look of transfiguration glistening in his black eyes and in the smile of his face. “It is going well, very well, Señor!”
Ramón paused to look at the fine white serape on the loom. It had a zigzag border of natural black wool and blue, in little diamonds, and the ends a complication of blackish and blue diamond-pattern. The man was just beginning to do the centre—called the boca, the mouth: and he looked anxiously at the design that was tacked to the loom. But it was simple: the same as the iron symbol the smith was making: a snake with his tail in his mouth, the black triangles on his back being the outside of the circle: and in the middle, a blue eagle standing erect, with slim wings touching the belly of the snake with their tips, and slim feet upon the snake, within the hoop.