“I was on the point of going to see you this morning,” he said in a low and confidential tone.
“And why did you not come?” responded Luiza, speaking in her natural voice; “we might have had some music.”
Bazilio did not answer, and began to twist his mustache. Donna Felicidade wanted to know what time it was. She began to grow impatient. She had expected to meet the counsellor, and, in order to appear to advantage in his eyes, she had laced herself, which was for her a very great sacrifice. Accacio did not make his appearance, the gas began to incommode her, and the annoyance she felt at not seeing him increased the tortures of her dyspepsia.
The orchestra, in full force, began to play the first bars of the March from Faust. This reanimated her. It was a pot-pourri of the opera, and there was no music she preferred to it.
She asked Bazilio if he would be in Madrid for the opening of the S. Carlos.
“I don’t know, Senhora,” he responded with a meaning glance at Luiza; “that depends—”
Luiza remained silent and motionless. The crowd increased. In the lateral walks, freer, cooler, and without gas-lights, those who were shy, who were in mourning, or who were shabbily attired, were walking, while the bourgeoisie, dressed in their Sunday finery, crowded together in the central walk, and grouping themselves in the passages between the compact files of chairs, moving along with the slowness of a half-melted mass of metal, impeded at every step, their throats parched, and in almost unbroken silence, went back and forth incessantly, in that passive confusion in which indolent races delight. Notwithstanding the countless lights and the noise of the gay music, a melancholy weariness, penetrating as a mist, seemed to hover in the air; the impalpable dust rested on every countenance, bestowing on it uncertain and ill-defined tones; and on every countenance, as it came within the light of the gas-lamps, could be read an indefinable expression of dreariness and fatigue, such as is to be seen only on a holiday.
Donna Felicidade proposed to take a turn. They rose, and crossed slowly through the crowd. As they found it difficult to advance, Bazilio proposed to his companions that they should make their escape from this confusion.
They assented. While Bazilio was buying the tickets, Donna Felicidade sat down on a bench under a weeping willow, exclaiming in doleful accents,—
“Ah, child, I think I am going to burst!”