Had you seen the state of the furniture and
the floor, O my reader, and the vastness of the old cobwebs and
the black dust that they held, the dead spiders and huge dead
flies, and the living generation of spiders descending and
ascending through the gloom, I say that you also would have been
surprised at the sight of those nice clean sheets. Rodriguez noted
the fact and continued his preparations. He took the bolster from
underneath the pillow and laid it down the middle of the bed and
put the sheets back over it; then he stood back and looked at it,
much as a sculptor might stand back from his marble, then he
returned to it and bent it a little in the middle, and after that
he placed his mandolin on the pillow and nearly covered it with
the sheet, but not quite, for a little of the curved dark-brown
wood remained still to be seen. It looked wonderfully now like a
sleeper in the bed, but Rodriguez was not satisfied with his work
until he had placed his kerchief and one of his shoes where a
shoulder ought to be; then he stood back once more and eyed it
with satisfaction. Next he considered the light. He looked at the
light of the moon and remembered his father's advice, as the young
often do, but considered that this was not the occasion for it,
and decided to leave the light of his candle instead, so that
anyone who might be familiar with the moonlight in that shadowy
chamber should find instead a less sinister light.
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