ss space, and it was black, ominously obscure, with the sputtering
spark of burning tears, of infinite worlds, little lamps of eternity in
whose flame lived other swarms of invisible atoms, and the icy, blind,
and cruel soul of shadowy space laughed at their passions and longings,
at the lies they fabricated incessantly to protect their ephemeral
existence, striving to prolong it with the illusion of an immortal soul.

All were lies which death came to unmask, interrupting men's course on
the pleasant path of their illusions, throwing them out of it with as
much indifference as their feet had crushed and driven to flight the
lines of ants which advanced amid the grass that was sowed with bony
remains.

Renovales was forced to flee. What was he doing there? What did that
deserted, empty spot of earth mean to him? Before he went away, with the
firm determination not to return again, he looked around the grave for
a flower, a few blades of grass, something to take with him as a
remembrance. No, Josephina was not there; he was sure, but like a lover,
he felt that longing, that passionate respect for anything which the
woman he loves had touched.

He scorned a cluster of wild-flowers which grew in abundance at the foot
of the grave. He wanted them from near the head and he picked a few
white buds close to the cross, thinking that perhaps their roots had
touched her face, that they preserved in their petals something of her
eyes, of her lips.

He went home downcast and sad, with a void in his mind and death in his
soul.

But in the warm air of the house, his love came forth to meet him; he
saw her beside him, smiling from the walls, rising out of the great
canvases. Renovales felt a warm breath on his face, as if those pictures
were breathing at once, filling the house with the essence of memories
which seemed to float in the atmosphere. Everything spoke to him of her,
everything was filled with that vague perfume of the past. Over there on
the graveyard hill was the wretched perishable covering. He would not
return. What was the use? He felt her around him, all that was left of
her in the world was enclosed in the house, as the strong odor remains
in a broken, forgotten perfume bottle. No, not in the house. She was in
him, he felt her presence within him, like those wandering souls of the
legends who took refuge in another's body, struggling to share the
dwelling with the soul which was mistress of the body. They had no