ouse of Dona
Cristina, although with less assiduity. He had the resigned and coldly
wrathful attitude of the man who believes that he has arrived too late
and is convinced that his bad luck was merely the result of his
carelessness.... If he had only spoken before! His masculine
self-importance never permitted him to doubt that the young girl would
have accepted him jubilantly.

In spite of this conviction, he was not able to refrain at times from a
certain ironical aggressiveness which expressed itself by inventing
classic nicknames. The young wife of Ulysses, bending over her
lace-making, was Penelope awaiting the return of her wandering husband.

Dona Cristina accepted this nickname because she knew vaguely that
Penelope was a queen of good habits. But the day that the professor, by
logical deduction, called Cinta's son Telemachus, the grandmother
protested.

"He is named Esteban after his grandfather.... Telemachus is nothing
but a theatrical name."

On one of his voyages Ulysses took advantage of a four-hour stop in the
port of Valencia to see his godfather. From time to time he had been
receiving letters from the poet,--each one shorter and sadder,--written
in a trembling script that announced his age and increasing infirmity.

Upon entering the office Ferragut felt just like the legendary sleepers
who believe themselves awaking after a few hours of sleep when they
have really been dozing for dozens of years. Everything there was still
just as it was in his infancy:--the busts of the great poets on the top
of the book-cases, the wreaths in their glass cases, the jewels and
statuettes, prizes for successful poems--were still in their crystal
cabinets or resting on the same pedestals; the books in their
resplendent bindings formed their customary close battalions the length
of the bookcases. But the whiteness of the busts had taken on the color
of chocolate, the bronzes were reddened by oxidation, the gold had
turned greenish, and the wreaths were losing their leaves. It seemed as
though ashes might have rained down upon perpetuity.

The occupants of this spell-bound dwelling presented the same aspect of
neglect and deterioration. Ulysses found the poet thin and yellow, with
a long white beard, with one eye almost closed and the other very
widely opened. Upon seeing the young officer, broad-chested, vigorous
and bronzed, Labarta, who was huddled in a great arm chair, began to
cry with a childish hiccough as t