. And believe me, my dear Pepe, this peaceful isolation has
greatly contributed to preserve me from the terrible malady connatural
in my family. In my youth I suffered, like my brothers and my father,
from a lamentable propensity to the most absurd manias; but here you
have me so miraculously cured that all I know of the malady is what I
see of it in others. And it is for that reason that I am so uneasy about
my little niece."

"I am rejoiced that the air of Orbajosa has proved so beneficial to
you," said Rey, unable to resist the jesting mood that, by a strange
contradiction, came over him in the midst of his sadness. "With me it
has agreed so badly that I think I shall soon become mad if I remain in
it. Well, good-night, and success to your labors."

"Good-night."

Pepe went to his room, but feeling neither a desire for sleep or the
need of physical repose,--on the contrary, a violent excitation of mind
which impelled him to move, to act,--he walked up and down the room,
torturing himself with useless cavilling. After a time he opened the
window which overlooked the garden and, leaning his elbows on the
parapet, he gazed out on the limitless darkness of the night. Nothing
could be seen, but he who is absorbed in his own thoughts sees with the
mental vision, and Pepe Rey, his eyes fixed on the darkness, saw the
varied panorama of his misfortunes unroll itself upon it before him. The
obscurity did not permit him to see the flowers of the earth, nor those
of the heavens, which are the stars. The very absence of light produced
the effect of an illusory movement in the masses of foliage, which
seemed to stretch away, to recede slowly, and come curling back like the
waves of a shadowy sea. A vast flux and reflux, a strife between forces
vaguely comprehended, agitated the silent sky. The mathematician,
contemplating this strange projection of his soul upon the night, said
to himself:

"The battle will be terrible. Let us see who will come out of it
victorious."

The nocturnal insects whispered in his ear mysterious words. Here
a shrill chirp; there a click, like the click made with the tongue;
further on, plaintive murmurs; in the distance a tinkle like that of
the bell on the neck of the wandering ox. Suddenly Rey heard a strange
sound, a rapid note, that could be produced only by the human tongue and
lips. This sibilant breathing passed through the young man's brain like
a flash of lightning. He felt that swift "s-s-