My highest dream of happiness was to be allowed to fetch her from school, and when, by some unforeseen accident, someone else was entrusted with this delightful duty I was so deeply distressed that I honestly thought there could be no greater grief in life, and would say to myself: “It is impossible that I should ever be more miserable when I am a man grown.” My greatest delight was to climb the orange-tree in the courtyard to pick the topmost sprays of blossom; I felt myself at a height far above the greatest king on earth when seated on his throne, and I can remember no pleasure to be compared to that of being obliged to capture her in that divinely rapturous game known as hide and seek. If she ran like a gazelle I flew like a bird to catch her as soon as possible, seizing her by the first part of her dress or person that I could lay my hand on. When we changed parts, when she was the pursuer and I was to be caught, the innocent delight of the blissful game was doubled, and the darkest and dingiest hole in which I might hide, breathlessly awaiting the grasp of her imprisoning hands, was to me a perfect paradise. And I may honestly say that during these happy games I never had a thought or a feeling that did not emanate from the purest and most loyal idealism.
Then her singing! From the time when she was quite little she used to sing the popular airs of Andalusia with the ease of a nightingale, which knows all the secrets of song without having been taught. All the neighbors admired her wonderful facility and would come to listen to her, but to me their applause and admiration were an offence; I could have wished her to sing to no one but me. Her singing was a sort of melancholy warbling, qualified by her fresh childlike voice. The air, which repeated itself with complicated little turns and trills like a thread of sound, seemed to be lost in distant heights and then to come back to earth again on the low notes. It was like the song of the lark as it rises towards heaven and suddenly comes down to sing close in our ears; the spirit of the hearer seemed to expand as it followed the voice, and then to contract again, but always following the swing of the melody and feeling the music to be inseparable from the sweet little singer. The effect was so singular that to me it was almost painful to hear her, particularly in the presence of others.
We were, as I have said, of about the same age, she being eight or nine months older than I was. But I was stunted and puny while she was well grown and vigorous, and at the end of my three years’ residence in the house she looked much the elder of the two. These three years slipped by without our either of us suspecting that we were growing up; our games went on without interruption, for she was much livelier by nature than I, though her mother would scold her, trying to keep her in order and make her study—in which, however, she did not always succeed. At the end of these three years, however, my adored young mistress was a woman grown; her figure was round and well formed, giving the finishing touch to her beauty; her face had a tenderer blush, a softer form, a gentler look; her large eyes were brighter but their glance was less restless and eager; her gait was more sober; her movements were, I cannot say lighter nor less light, but certainly different, though I could not, either then or now, define in what the difference lay. But no change struck me so much as that in her voice, which acquired a gravity and depth very unlike the shrill gay tones in which she had been wont to call me, bewildering my common sense and making me leave my various duties to join in her games. The bud, in short, had become a rose, the chrysalis was transformed into a butterfly.
Then, one day—one dreadful, dismal day—my young mistress appeared before me in a long dress. This alteration made such an impression on me that I could not speak a word the whole day. I felt like a man who has been cruelly imposed upon, and I was so vexed with her that in my secret soul I found fifty reasons for seriously resenting her rapid development. A perfect fever of argumentativeness was fired in my brain, and I debated the matter with myself in the most fervent manner during my sleepless nights. The thing that utterly confounded me was that the addition of a few yards of stuff to her skirts seemed altogether to have altered her character. That day—a thousand times unblessed—she spoke to me with the greatest formality, ordering me coldly and even repellently to do all the things I least liked doing—and she, who had so often been my accomplice and screen in idleness, now reproved me for it! and all this without
