Every day brought its new torture, and my mother was my grand inquisitor. Once, on unexpectedly entering the room, and parting the curtains of the alcove, I perceived the infant lying on the bed by Juliana's side. Nobody was present. We three were there together without witnesses. The infant slept peacefully, bound up in its swaddling-clothes.
"It was mother who left him here," stammered Juliana.
I fled like a madman.
Another time Cristina called me. I followed her into the room containing the cradle. My mother was there, with the baby on her knees.
The child was moving its limbs and arms, turning its eyes from one side to the other, burying its fingers in its gaping mouth. At the wrists, at the ankles, behind the knees on the lower abdomen, the flesh swelled out in little cushions and was covered with rice powder. My mother's hands caressed the little members with delight, pointing out to me every detail, expatiating on the skin which a recent bath had polished and made lustrous. The infant seemed to be enjoying it.
"Feel here, feel how solid he is already!" she said, inviting me to touch him.
I was obliged to touch him.
"See how heavy he is!"
I was obliged to lift him, to feel that warm and flaccid little body palpitate between my hands, which were seized by a trembling that was not due to tenderness.
"The love, the love, the love of his grandmother!" repeated my mother, tickling the chin of the infant, who did not yet know how to laugh.