CHAPTER V

THE SECRET OF THE WIND AND THE WALNUT-TREES

Maria's fever lasted only eight days; nevertheless, when she left her
bed, her parents found her more changed in face and in mind than if the
eight days had been eight months. Her eyes had grown darker, and had
assumed a peculiar expression of calm and precocious maturity. She spoke
more distinctly and rapidly, but to those who were not to her liking,
she would not speak at all, would not even greet them. This was more
displeasing to Franco than to Luisa. Franco wished her to be amiable,
but Luisa feared to spoil her sincerity. For her mother Maria cherished
an affection violent rather than demonstrative, a jealous, almost fierce
affection. She was very fond of her father also, but it was evident that
she felt he was unlike herself. Franco had passionate outbursts of
affection for her, when he would catch her up unexpectedly, press her
close, and cover her with kisses. At such moments she would throw her
head back, plant one little hand upon her father's face, and look
frowningly at him, as if something in him were strange and repugnant to
her. Often Franco would scold her angrily, and Maria would cry and stare
at him through her tears, motionless, and as if fascinated, and always
wearing the expression of one who does not understand. He noticed the
child's predilection for her mother, and this was pleasing to him, for
it seemed a just preference, and he never doubted that later Maria would
love him tenderly also. Luisa, loving her husband as she did, was much
troubled that the child should exhibit greater affection for herself;
however this sentiment of hers was less lively, less pure, than Franco's
generous pleasure. It seemed to Luisa that, after all, in spite of his
transports, Franco loved his daughter as a being distinct from himself,
while she, who had no transports of external tenderness, loved the child
as a vital part of herself. Moreover she cherished in her heart a future
Maria probably very different from the one Franco cherished. For this
reason also she could not regret her moral ascendency over her daughter.
She foresaw the danger that Franco might favour an exaggerated
development of the child's religious sentiment, and this, to her, was a
very serious danger, for in Maria, full of curiosity, eager for stories,
there were the germs of a very lively imagination, which would be most
favourable to religious fancies, and a badly balanced moral sen