Quentin did not appear at Rafaela’s house for some time. Alone, with nothing to occupy him, friendless; he was desperately bored. How the Andalusian spring oppressed him! He wandered about from place to place, without plans, without an object, without a destination.
The sun inundated the silent, deserted streets; the sky, a pure, opaque blue, seemed something tangible—a huge turquoise, or sapphire in which roofs and towers and terraces were embedded.
Everything gave the impression of profound lethargy.... The houses: blue, yellow, pale rose, cream-coloured, all hermetically sealed, seemed deserted; the irrigated vestibules flowed with water; one smelt vaguely the odour of flowers, and a penetrating perfume of orange blossoms arose from the patios and gardens.
The plazas, like white whirlpools of sunlight, were blinding with the reverberation of light against the walls. In the alleys, tenebrous, narrow, shadowy, one felt a damp, cave-like cold.... Everywhere silence and solitude reigned; in some lonely spot, a donkey, tied to a grating, remained motionless; a hungry dog scratched in a heap of refuse; or a frightened cat ran with tail erect until it disappeared in its hiding-place.
In the distance, the crowing of a cock rang out like a bugle call in the silent air; one heard the melancholy cry of the vendors of medicinal herbs; and through the deserted plazoletas, through the narrow and tortuous alleys, there rose the song of love and death that a grancero was singing as he rode along on his donkey.
In La Ribera, some vagabonds and gipsies were sunning themselves, while others played quoits; little children with brown skins ran about bare-legged, covered only by a scanty shirt; sunburned old women came to the windows and gratings; and along the white, the very white highway, which resembled a great chalk furrow, there passed gallant horsemen, raising clouds of dust.
The river wound peacefully along—blue at times, at times golden; wagons and herds passed slowly over the bridges—so slowly that from a distance they seemed motionless.
An oppressive calm, a tiresome somnolence weighed down upon the city; and in the midst of this calm, of this death-like silence, there sounded a bell here, another there—all extremely languid and sad....
At nightfall, the magic of the twilight touched the city and the distant landscape with gold—-‘d lights; splendid colours of extraordinary magnificence. The clouds became rosy, scarlet.... The country was tinged with gold, and the last rays of the sun set fire to the rocks and peaks of the mountain-tops.
In the streets, which were bathed with light, a narrow strip of shadow appeared upon the walks, which grew and widened until it covered the whole pavement. Then it slowly climbed the walls, reached the grated windows and the balconies, scaled the twisted eaves.... The sunlight completely disappeared from the street, and there only remained the last vestiges of its brilliancy upon the towers, the high look-outs, and the flaming windows....