Now, for the first time, a reality that had always been inaccessible to her was close by. And Idolina could not retreat, however fearful she was of advancing to meet it. To satisfy both demands, she gave in halfway. She wouldn’t attend the dance publicly, but would be an invisible witness to it from a concealed place.

That place was a sort of attic which looked out on the house’s courtyard and galleries from a height slightly above the rest. It had been constructed on the whim of one of the owners, separated from the other rooms, and only a few yards from Idolina’s. At first it was used as a library. But the volumes gradually disappeared, sold, devoured by rats, or eaten away by the damp. Nowadays, trunks, useless furniture and old dresses were heaped up in it beside the remains of the books.

Stealthily, Idolina opened the door a crack. After making sure no one was there, she stepped out. Slowly, despite the fear of being seen that was goading her on. Slowly her foot sought the place where the sharp pine needles would hurt it least, where the resin was least sticky. Meanwhile the nana went ahead to unlock the door, then returned to the girl’s side in time to help her go up the few steps that gave access to the attic.

Together Idolina and Teresa went in. The room was dark, illuminated only by the lights that came through the window from the courtyard below. The girl rested her forehead, burning with emotion and fatigue, on the window’s glass. Beyond it was life, the world.

Idolina looked down, defenseless, eager to allow herself to be fascinated. Her first impression was confused, lacerating: disordered noises that hammered at her brain, sudden flashes of light that tore at her retinas. Not until she had calmed down a little (and the artery in her neck was no longer throbbing as if it were about to burst), not until her senses, dulled by the long confinement, had grown accustomed to the spectacle that presented itself to them, did Idolina begin to contemplate, to understand, to assess.

Her first emotion was disappointment. How paltry what she saw now was compared with what she remembered or had imagined! The courtyard was large, true. But not as large as the one she ran across when she was a child. Then, the only thing big enough to cover it was the open sky. Now a canvas awning was sufficient, patched with large stitches and vibrating in the furious March gales that were beating against it.

The Paniagua brothers’ marimba, the most famous in Ciudad Real, had been set up in one corner of the courtyard. In the opposite corner, the band from Acala was tuning up its instruments: the trombone, solemn and ridiculous; the clarinet, sharp and defiant; the cymbals, gleaming and clattering; the potbellied drum.