The Joy of Captain Ribot

e mysterious and stimulating virtue. On land I am able to control somewhat my most vehement sentiments and conquer them. Once

ain in my life to return to stand before Do?a Cristina, continuing in this commendable resolution until I left Bar

in dreams did she leave my mind; every word she had spoken sounded ceaselessly in my ears, as if I had in my brain a phonograph charged with conversations, and in my heart I felt every one of her gestures and movements. On returning towards Vale

long, and made him an excuse for not going to the house of Martí. I did not go directly to see him, preferring to go later. I went out first to take a w

other two, Do?a Clara and Do?a Amparo. I hastened up to them, an

if ashamed, she turned and came and welcomed me with unusual amiability. She explained her cry and her flight by declaring that a few moments ago she had given a bit of alms to a poor creature who had been a criminal, and all at once, without knowing why, it

and walked on with them

howed pleasure at seeing me. I could not do less than offer him my compassion on seeing in his face traces plainer than ever of his arduous labors beneath the sun. The result of these, by what I could g

uiries of that sort. Really it seemed to me that the lightly disdainful attitude that he held towards all the world was a little emph

roof of the depth of the affection wherewith she had inspired me. Her imaginary fears and her agitations at sight of me only increased it, and I credited her lack of courtesy to these imaginary fears. I noted that after the

uitted the sight of Cristina. Whenever occasion presented, I made plain what was passing in my soul. If she dropped anything upon the floor, I was there to hasten and pick it up. If she glanced towards the door, I had already run to close it. If she complained of any ill feeling, I proposed all the r

ed a melancholy impression upon me. But I was compensated by other enjoyments, fanciful, perhaps, but that did not hinder their being delicious. When we were sitting at table, although as I have said sh

racious mingling of timidity and ease of manner, of insistent happiness and supercilious seriousness, there existed in her a depth of exquisite sensibility, carefully and even ferociously guard

eiving one whenever possible. Her husband himself, when he found himself a little rebuffed, took it with his jolly shout, accepting everything with a laug

w it, all was lost. She returned at once to her brusqueness, cutting off gratitude with some ironical or disdainful speech. She also had the spirit of contradiction well developed; that is to say, she wa

of her spirit, even to the faintest shades of thought. Whatever dominated her for the moment, whatever stirred her, in spite of barr

fidant and even asked me to give him advice. At last, after I had been five or six days in Valencia, he joyously proposed that we should thee-and-thou each other, and without waiting for my response began to do so with a cordiality that touched me. I experienced a mingled pride and humiliation, pleasure and pain; thinking how the confidence of this man brought me nearer his wife, yet held me all the more removed from her morally. I had o

e about the house and garden. The family was usually installed there by May, the present month;

gardens that lie between the city and the sea. I consented with good will, and at the hou

little houses with their sharp-pointed roofs grew a grove of orange-trees, pomegranates, and algarrobos. Beyond were cultivated fields with flowers and vegetables, some set with roses, lilies, carnations, gillyflowers; and others with strawberries, alfalfa, and artichokes. Running about a

s, and scarcely the r

l knowledge, trained and skilful in this class of work, which I think I should immediately use in making canals from a river in the province of Almeria, where there are great tracts of land that might prove very productive if watered, and which need only irrigation and ways of communication. It is a project that I have been turning over in my head for several yea

orbed in the contemplation of the beautiful, var

on, gayly flinging out his arms as if to embrace all mankind, "these ideas only come after some y

e developed, but they

nly succeed in putting myself out. Whatever matter I confide to his care, even if I give him precise and definite instructi

and yet it came into my imagination that he might have purposely provoked it as certain naughty

application he is discouraged by the least scrap of an obstacle in his way. He is all obstacles and doubts and scruples. He loses heart before he begins anything and he has given up business. To carry out an industrial

rant air. The joyfulness of such a scene, serene and luminous as a picture by Titian, the idyllic bits that we came upon here and there, entered into the soul and overflowed it with a gentle felic

the way I saw a curious plot of ground whose walls were made of perfectly symmetrical and equal-sized stones. These walls seemed to be in ruins, and throu

is?" I aske

at his shirt cuffs, and declared, with a ges

ctory of arti

not seem to

N

es it be

o

m. We went on several steps without deigning to cast another look

tone-all these walls are built of the products of the

say so. Martí explained that the failure of the factory was due to the scarcity of workmen. Valencia was a province that for centuries had neglected in

, and he avoided looking at the unlucky factory. So in order to mortify him no more, I showed the least possibl

avelled pathways were bordered by orange-trees, lemons, pomegranates, and many other sorts of fruit-trees. Here was a little grove of laurels, and in the middle of it was a stone table surrounded by chairs. There was a grotto tapestried with jasmine and honeysuckle; yonder was a thicket of cannas, or cypresses, and in the centre a statue of white marble. And like a base for decoration, there was the azure line of the sea, into whose waves seemed ready to fall the oranges that hung from the boughs. The sun, that was already sinking, enveloped the garden and the sea with a sudden blaze of illumination; its golden rays

next the beach that he was enough distracted for a few moments to point out to me a summer-house in the Greek style that was admirably introduced into this smiling landscape. It was adorn

was a thing of my wife's. That is w

of water, imitating a moat. We crossed it by means of a drawbridge, and ascended by a narrow footpath between hedges of box and orange, arriving at the top in the time that it takes to tell of it. The path, because

stell's, and, naturally, it bears his name-which is all

he cultivated grounds, all the harbor, and the Puerto Nuevo and the grand expanse of the sea. Above its innumerable wavelets, above the freshness and dark depths of the water hung the crystal vault of the sky, dappled with delicate tints of rose. The sun flung a river of gold

ssed by the sight of an ugly brick structure wh

empt at a beer manufacto

row was furrowe

ot get to the

y of the water. The maker, whom I got here from England, did not explai

tle castle, followed by me. There was in every movement of this man when he expressed pleasure or annoyance so much heartiness, su

maize, the gardens and orchards. It was the hour of stopping work, and the laborers in the fields, with their Valencian kerchiefs about their heads, were resting at the doors of thei