“I was already aware of your arrival. I saw it announced among the interesting items of news of our ‘high-life.’ And Jorge?” he added, addressing Luiza.
“Jorge is in Beja, and, judging from his letters, he seems to be very much bored there.”
“In effect,” said Bazilio, with affability, “I cannot form to myself the least idea of how he can spend his time in Beja. It must be horrible.”
“It is, however, the capital of a province,” observed the counsellor, passing over his mustache a white hand adorned with a seal-ring.
“But if in Lisbon, which is the capital of the kingdom,” said Bazilio, pulling down his cuffs, “one does not know what to do with one’s self. It is enough to make one die of ennui!”
“Don’t say that before the counsellor,” said Luiza, laughing, enchanted with Bazilio’s affability. “He is a great admirer of Lisbon.”
“I was born in Lisbon,” said Accacio, bowing, “and I esteem Lisbon, dear Senhora. I recognize the fact, nevertheless,” he continued ingenuously, “that it is not to be compared to Paris, to London, or to Madrid.”
“Oh, of course not!” said Luiza.
“But,” continued the counsellor, with an air of pride, “Lisbon has beauties of its own that have no equal. The entrance to the harbor, as I have heard, for I have never been there, is a magnificent panorama that rivals the bay of Constantinople or that of Naples,—worthy to be described by the pen of a Garrett or a Lamartine,” he continued pompously.
But Luiza, dreading quotations and literary criticisms, asked him what he had done with himself last Sunday; saying she had gone with Donna Felicidade to the Passeio, and had been disappointed at not seeing him there.