he had made a display of more
than ten suits of clothes and twenty plumes. Do not look upon all this
that I am telling you about the clothes as uncalled for or spun out, for
they have a great deal to do with the story. He used to seat himself on a
bench under the great poplar in our plaza, and there he would keep us all
hanging open-mouthed on the stories he told us of his exploits. There was
no country on the face of the globe he had not seen, nor battle he had
not been engaged in; he had killed more Moors than there are in Morocco
and Tunis, and fought more single combats, according to his own account,
than Garcilaso, Diego Garcia de Paredes and a thousand others he named,
and out of all he had come victorious without losing a drop of blood. On
the other hand he showed marks of wounds, which, though they could not be
made out, he said were gunshot wounds received in divers encounters and
actions. Lastly, with monstrous impudence he used to say "you" to his
equals and even those who knew what he was, and declare that his arm was
his father and his deeds his pedigree, and that being a soldier he was as
good as the king himself. And to add to these swaggering ways he was a
trifle of a musician, and played the guitar with such a flourish that
some said he made it speak; nor did his accomplishments end here, for he
was something of a poet too, and on every trifle that happened in the
town he made a ballad a league long.

This soldier, then, that I have described, this Vicente de la Roca, this
bravo, gallant, musician, poet, was often seen and watched by Leandra
from a window of her house which looked out on the plaza. The glitter of
his showy attire took her fancy, his ballads bewitched her (for he gave
away twenty copies of every one he made), the tales of his exploits which
he told about himself came to her ears; and in short, as the devil no
doubt had arranged it, she fell in love with him before the presumption
of making love to her had suggested itself to him; and as in love-affairs
none are more easily brought to an issue than those which have the
inclination of the lady for an ally, Leandra and Vicente came to an
understanding without any difficulty; and before any of her numerous
suitors had any suspicion of her design, she had already carried it into
effect, having left the house of her dearly beloved father (for mother
she had none), and disappeared from the village with the soldier, who
came more triumphantly out