Isabel hid her husband’s misconduct as best she could. The only place she risked complaining about it was the confessional, and there she received no advice but only the reprimand of someone who had strongly warned her about the error she was going to commit: “The demon abandons those he seduces. . .

Isabel’s heart was poisoned by this compulsory discretion. The venom began to filter into her talks with Idolina, first in complicated allusions, later in shameless confidences that pulsated with a hidden urge to expose the depth of her unhappiness so that her betrayal would be forgiven.

How the young girl—for she was already a young girl—savored the tale of Isabel’s every new disillusionment. An image was engraving itself in her avid mind: the image of the unscrupulous man to whose brutality and voracious cynicism Isidoro had succumbed and Isabel was sacrificed.

Idolina’s only comment was a soft monosyllable, just enough to keep from turning the complainer away by her indifference. But she gave no other sign of sharing the outrage. She saw Leonardo as the instrument of a punishment. And she needed so badly for Isabel to be punished!

One winter night the mother and daughter were in the parlor. Isabel had lit a brazier to take the chill out of the air and was passing the time poking it with a pair of heavy iron tongs. Idolina was irritated by the brief but repeated and almost rhythmic sound of the metal. She breathed the air tainted by the warmth with increasing repulsion. After a painful and lengthy hesitation, she raised the lid of the piano and stiffly and stubbornly began practicing an exercise.

“Bravo! Bravo!”

It was Leonardo applauding, standing at the threshold with a lumbering, drunken defiance. The mocking look that accompanied his exclamation was still on his face. Idolina clenched both fists and let them fall heavily on the keyboard. Hatred was strangling her. She wanted to hurl herself onto Leonardo, knock him down, destroy him. She turned violently to face him, stood up, took a few steps. And suddenly collapsed, writhing, frothing at the mouth, unconscious. When she came back to herself she could no longer move without help.

And then the days, the years, all alike. Until today.

Outside, in the galleries, in the courtyards and rear yards, the whole house was bubbling over with preparations for the dance. Whispering, hurrying, the light shuffle of feet.

A sudden burst of light from a lamp that had been lit chased the shadows away from the sewing room.

The cathedral bells rang vespers.

VIII

CHAPTER VIII

“AND WALKING THROUGH the night the ijc’al appeared to them.”