She went upstairs to the kitchen, and said to Joanna,—
“Wait up for Juliana. Have patience; she cannot remain long now; perhaps she has been taken sick.”
It was past twelve o’clock, and Luiza had already retired, when the door-bell rang, at first faintly, then more loudly, and at last impatiently.
“The girl must be asleep,” said Luiza to herself.
She jumped out of bed and went in her bare feet up to the kitchen. Joanna was snoring loudly, her head resting on her folded arms upon the table beside the smoking lamp. Luiza wakened her, saw her on her feet, and then went back to bed. Shortly afterwards she heard Juliana saying in satisfied tones,—
“Everything is done, eh? Well, I have been to the theatre. What a beautiful play! It couldn’t be better, Joanna; it couldn’t be better!”
It was late when Luiza fell asleep, and all night long she was troubled by unquiet dreams. She thought she was in an immense theatre covered with gilding. It was an evening in the season; jewels glittered on ivory bosoms, and decorations shone on court dresses. In his box a king, young and of melancholy aspect, sat, rigid and immovable, supporting in his right hand an armillary sphere; his mantle of dark velvet, sown with precious stones, fell around him in artistic folds to the floor, causing the multitude of courtiers to stumble as they approached him.
She was on the stage; she was an actress. She was making her début in Ernesto’s drama, and, trembling with nervousness, she saw, in the vast pit before her, rows of intensely black eyes all gazing at her pitilessly. In the midst of them, towering above the others, rose the bald cranium of the counsellor, like a large white flower surrounded by a swarm of bees. On the stage, the scenery, representing a wood, was oscillating back and forth; on the left stood a pine-tree, majestic and ancient, whose summit resolved itself into the traits of a countenance resembling Sebastião’s. The director of the orchestra clapped his hands. In appearance he was like Don Quixote; he wore round eye-glasses framed in tin, and brandished in his hand a roll of the “Jornal do Commercio.” He cried out,—
“Pass on to the love-scene! pass on to that miracle of art!”
Then the orchestra, the eyes of the musicians glittering, their bushy hair standing on end, played with melancholy slowness the fado of Leopoldina, and a shrill and uneven voice sang in falsetto,—