He does not know how it happened, but he has got his foot over the edge of the bed, he stands upright, he bends, he raises his arms, snaps his fingers, and wishes to glide forward over the floor in the same way as long ago, when he wore so tight patent leather shoes the stocking feet had to be cut away.
“Bravo, Örneclou! Bravo, Lilliecrona, play life into him!”
His foot gives way; he cannot rise on his toe. He kicks a couple of times with one leg; he can do no more, he falls back on the bed.
Handsome señor, you have grown old.
Perhaps the señorita has too.
It is only under the plane-trees of Granada that the cachucha is danced by eternally young gitanas. Eternally young, because, like the roses, each spring brings new ones.
So now the time has come to cut the strings.
No, play on, Lilliecrona, play the cachucha, always the cachucha!
Teach us that, although we have got slow bodies and stiff joints, in our feelings we are always the same, always Spaniards.
War-horse, war-horse!