er, more genuine joy than my meetings with this
imperturbable, self-contained woman. We had rapidly come to
confidential terms with one another, so that one day without
consultation or emotion we said "Du" to each other--I do not even know
whether it was she or I who began the practice.

And now I was once more walking along the broad, hot street with the
one-storied houses, once more on the same side in the shade, which
today, to be sure, was deeper than the first time; for it was still
early morning. And now I stood by the window, put my arms on the
window-sill and said, "Good morning, Mariandel, sweetmeats!" And she
stood before an ironing board which rested on the windowsill and the
table, and was ironing with a charcoal flat-iron. She put the iron down
on the rest, gave me her firm, warm hand, and said, "_Bom dia, senhor
doutor! Passa bem?_" and her eye seemed to beam more cordially than
ever, and yet could not express more cordiality than it had expressed
before.

She seated herself by the window, put her right hand on the sill, above
which my head and shoulders protruded, and began to speak, turning her
head in such a way that I saw now her profile, with the inconspicuous
but firm lines of her nose, mouth, and chin, and the heavy braids of
her lustrous hair about her neck, now her full face beaming upon me;
then, however, I forgot all her other, beauty, in contemplation of the
incomprehensibly reposeful and unsullied blue of her eye. I was never
in love with her; never had the sight of her or thoughts of her taken
my breath away; but never was I so full of joyous love for a human
being as then for her.

After she had asked questions about this and that and had told me all
sorts of things, she said, "Professor, don't let me forget to tell you:
George Bleyle down there at the _Mercadinho_ is not having very good
trade, they say; if you need anything, just bear him in mind. He has
bought at bottom prices a whole invoice of men's furnishings that was
put up at auction down at the dock, and things are very cheap at his
shop just now."

And she told what she had purchased for her father, and what her
sister-in-law had got for her husband, named the prices, and praised
the quality of the goods. I gazed first at her eyes, then at the
glowing coals within the flat-iron, listened to the tones of her dear,
faithful voice and thought of my home of long ago, of brothers and
sisters and friends, of a home of my own with w