"Oh!" she cried, laughing down her shamefacedness like a school-girl, "just ask my brother and his wife whether they cannot take anything ill of me!"
"Then they are not human beings. There aren't so very many."
"No, my brother is good," she replied, "and Anna too."
"In any case, I shall prove to you that I am ready to help my fellow-man. I shall buy of Henrique Bleyle a complete new outfit from head to foot, and hope thereby to save him from bankruptcy."
"Not Henrique Bleyle, but George Bleyle at the Mercadinho, and there is no question of bankruptcy. For Heaven's sake don't say anything of the kind!" She looked at me in the utmost confusion and with guilty eyes; she had of course emphasized the fact that business was bad--as it was in general at that time--merely in order to induce me to buy of George Bleyle, since she feared she could not make me budge by speaking only of the cheapness of his wares.
Now I gave her great pleasure by inquiring at exactly what prices she had made her purchases, and by asking for advice of various sorts. I did not get much profit from this; the effort to distinguish between linen, cotton-warp linen, cotton, shirting, and fil d'Écosse caused me something of a headache. But she was all joy and eagerness.
Then she had to use her iron while it was hot. She lifted one end of the ironing board, drew a light calico gown over it like a ring, put the board down again, and ironed, gradually letting the whole of the gown travel across the board.
The shade in which I stood grew smaller, the heat penetrated markedly nearer to me and awakened my daily desire to go to the city park and sit in the shade of its giant trees and bamboo bushes. I lighted a cigarette at one of the little glowing eyes of the charcoal flat-iron, and started away.
"Ate logo, senhor!" said she, using a phrase that corresponds exactly to the Rhenish "So long!" Since she did not know much Portuguese, she took pleasure in seizing all opportunities to use the most current expressions; but she used these with such perfect pronunciation that you would suppose she had complete command of the language.
As was always the case, I was in a peaceful frame of mind when I left her, I was filled with a sense of cosy comfort which gained all the more piquancy because flavored with an infinitely delicate bitterness that I could not understand. In a revery I strolled along through the streets which, because the diminutive houses cast so little shadow, became hotter every minute, and passed slowly out of the city.