Elena however paid it a great deal of attention, sitting in front of it for hours at a time, letting her fingers run up and down the keyboard, while the “romances” she had learned when she was a young girl came back to her; but invariably she interrupted them to dash off a fragment of the popular music she had heard in Paris before she came away.
Inspired by this evocation of her more youthful past, she sometimes added her voice to that of the instrument. When this happened Sebastiana and the other servants left their work in the corral or the balconies, and cautiously creeping nearing and nearer the drawing room listened with softened expressions and glances of admiration to the sounds issuing from it, subdued like the creatures of the wood who listened to Orpheus’ lyre.
The neighbors too yielded to the spell. As soon as it was night and the workmen had finished their meal, the women and children would start out for Pirovani’s. Squatting on the ground at a little distance they would gaze eagerly at the windows that glowed red from the lamp within. If some of the children grew impatient, and began their own games again, their mothers would cry out,
“Be still, you little gallows birds, the lady’s going to sing!”
And an almost religious emotion passed through them at the sound of the piano keys and Elena’s voice; for the melody that penetrated through the wooden walls to the crowd in the dark street seemed a message from another world; so many of them had, for years, heard no music but that of twanging guitars at the boliche.
Then, impelled by admiration and twinges of desire, some of the men would join the groups in the street. They were the same men who looked with indifference at the girl from the Rojas ranch with her boy’s clothes and boy’s ways; but this woman, when she rode by in her trim riding skirt, aroused their enthusiasm. What a woman, the marquesa de Torre Bianca! Some curves about her!
And, as they listened to her singing, they stood gaping with sensuous delight, firmly believing that only a beautiful woman could utter tones such as those vibrating in their ears....
A week after the Torre Biancas had moved into their new quarters, Sebastiana announced to her friends that henceforth the señora marquesa was going to be at home once a week just like the great ladies in Buenos Aires. This announcement was made in such fashion that the gossips of La Presa took it into their heads that these weekly parties were going to be extraordinary occasions. Scarcely was dinner over on the appointed night, when groups began to gather before the illuminated windows. Some of the women stood with hands raised to their ears so as to hear better, and they did not hesitate, by means of severe elbow thrusts, to impose silence on their chattering neighbors.
While her guests were arriving, Elena, at the piano, was singing sentimental lyrics of a bygone period.
The first to present themselves were Canterac and Moreno. The latter, in order to complete his evening attire, had thought it necessary to don a silk hat. Pirovani could top off his dress suit with a crush hat if he liked! Just the same the marquesa, who was a woman of such distinction, couldn’t help noticing things like that!... details of course, but how quickly they betray bad taste!