Another day, as I was breaking off a flowering branch from an apple-tree, I surprised in Federico's eyes a shadow of sorrow. I stopped immediately, and withdrew my hands, saying:
"Does it displease you..."
He burst into a laugh.
"Not at all, not at all. You may despoil the entire tree."
Yet the broken branch, held by several live fibres, hung down the trunk, and, truly, that wound, moist with sap, had an appearance of a thing in pain; those fragile flowers, flesh-colored with pale spots, like bunches of simple roses, grown from a germ henceforth condemned, continued to thrill in the breeze.
Then, so as to excuse the cruelty of my aggression, I said:
"It is for Juliana."
And, breaking the last live fibres, I detached the broken branch.
III.
I carried this branch to Juliana, and many others besides. I never returned to the Badiola without a load of flowered gifts.