When our glances encounter each other thus, I forget even God. Her image rises up within my soul, the conqueror of everything. Her beauty outshines all other beauty; the joys of heaven seem to me less desirable than her affection. An eternity of suffering would be little in exchange for one moment of the infinite bliss with which one of those glances that pass like lightning inundates my soul.
When I return home, when I am alone in my room, in the silence of the night, I realize all the horror of my position, and I form good resolutions, only to break them again.
I resolve to feign sickness, to make use of any pretext so as not to go to Pepita's on the following night, and yet I go.
My father, confiding to the last degree, says to me when the hour arrives, without any suspicion of what is passing in my soul:
"Go you to Pepita's; I will go later, when I have finished with the overseer."
No excuse occurs to me; I can find no pretext for not going, and, instead of answering, "I can not go," I take my hat and depart.
On entering the room I shake hands with Pepita, and, as our hands touch, she casts a spell over me; my whole being is changed; a devouring fire penetrates my heart, and I think only of her. Moved by an irresistible impulse, I gaze at her with insane ardor, and at every instant I think I discover in her new perfections. Now it is the dimples in her cheeks when she smiles, now the roseate whiteness of her skin, now the straight outlines of her nose, now the smallness of her ear, now the softness of contour and the admirable modeling of her throat.
I enter her house against my will, as though summoned there by a conjurer, and no sooner am I there than I fall under the spell of her enchantment. I see clearly that I am in the power of an enchantress, whose fascination is irresistible.
Not only is she pleasing to my sight, but her words sound in my ears like the music of the spheres, revealing to my soul the harmony of the universe; and I even fancy that a subtle fragrance emanates from her, sweeter than the perfume of the mint that grows by the brook-side, or the wood-like odor of the thyme that is found among the hills.
I know not how, in this state of exaltation, I am able to play hombre, or to converse rationally, or even to speak, so completely am I absorbed in her.