As the lady approached the couch upon which the young man was
lying, and still no look was turned towards Rodriguez, his young
dreams fled as butterflies sailing high in the heat of June that
are suddenly plunged in night by a total eclipse of the sun. He
had never spoken to Serafina, or seen before her mother, and they
did not know his name; he knew that he, Rodriguez, had no claim to
a welcome. But his dreams had flocked so much about Serafina's
face, basking so much in her beauty, that they now fell back
dying; and when a man's dreams die what remains, if he lingers
awhile behind them?
Rodriguez suddenly felt that his left shoe was off and his right
eye still bandaged, things that he had not noticed while his only
thought was for the man he carried to shelter, but torturing his
consciousness now that he thought of himself. He opened his lips
to explain; but before words came to him, looking at the face of
Serafina's mother, standing now by the couch, he felt that, not
knowing how, he had somehow wronged the Penates of this house, or
whatever was hid in the dimness of that long chamber, by carrying
in this young man there to rest from his hurt.
Rodriguez' depression arose from these causes, but having arisen,
it grew of its own might: he had had nothing to eat since morning,
and in the favouring atmosphere of hunger his depression grew
gigantic. He opened his lips once more to say farewell, was
oppressed by all manner of thoughts that held him dumb, and turned
away in silence and left the house.
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