The Professor was seated in his little terrace with a table beside him. He was weaving a basket. Silvery white roots in assorted bunches were piled on the table, and strips of basket-wood lay on the ground in coils. His robe was of gray cloth with a white girdle and hood, and he wore a little scarlet skull-cap. Tacita saw now, better than before, how handsome he was. The face was strong and placid, the hands fine in shape, the hair gleamed like frost.
She stood on the edge of the terrace before he saw her, and was in some trepidation lest she had not taken pains enough to make him aware of her approach.
When he looked up suddenly, secretly aware of some other human presence, his face lighted with a smile of perfect welcome, and with a faint, delicate blush.
He brought out a pretty chair of woven roots with leathern cushions.
“The terrace is my salon,” he said. “And I have the pleasure of asking you to be the first to sit in a chair of my own making. Are not the roots pretty? See the little green stripe running through the silver. It is second sight, already dreaming of leaves. Till I began basket-making, I had not known the beautiful colors and textures of woods. It is a pleasant employment for my hands. It enables me to think while working. Is the chair right for you? I am grateful to you for coming up. Shall we continue to speak in Italian? It must come more readily to you; and I am always pleased to speak the beautiful language. It is not more musical than San Salvadorian; but it is richer. Our language grows slowly. It is limited, like the experience of our people. Every new word, moreover, is challenged, and tried by a jury of scholars. We adopt a good many imitative words, especially from the Italian. You will hear fruscio, ciocie, rimbomba, and the like.”
They spoke of Professor Mora, and Tacita answered a good many questions concerning him.
Professor Pearlstein, in return, recalled their early days together; and she found it delightful to hear of her grandfather as a boy, leaping from such a rock, picking grapes in vintage time in the road below, studying in the college yonder, and sliding down from terrace to terrace on a rope. It was charming, too, to hear of her mother as a little girl, quaint and serious, with golden hair and a pearly skin, and of her father as master of the orchards, with eyes like an eagle, and a ready, musical laugh. He died from a fall in trying to jump from one tree to another. “Who would have thought,” he said, “that it is only three feet from time to eternity!”
“I am glad,” Professor Pearlstein said, “that my old friend was able to live his own life to the last. It is not so hard for a student such as he. In such cases people can understand that they do not understand, and they let the student alone. In going out into the world, the most of us feel the pressure of a thousand petty restraints. I reckon that I lost five years of my life in wondering what people would think of things which they had no right to notice at all.”
“It is like a person trying to run in a sack,” Tacita said, “or like rowing against the tide a gondola all clogged and covered with weeds.”
The old man brought a little table and placed on it a dainty refreshment for his visitor, setting it out with a pleased, hospitable care: a slice of bread, a conserve of orange-flowers, and a tiny glass of wine; partaking also with her at her request.