He had no French
friends, and upon going into the street, his feet instinctively took him
to the places where the Argentinians gathered together. It was the same
with them. They had left their country only to feel, with increasing
intensity, the desire to talk about it all the time. There he read the
papers, commenting on the rising prices in the fields, on the prospects
for the next harvests and on the sales of cattle. Returning home, his
thoughts were still in America, and he chuckled with delight as he
recalled the way in which the two chinas had defied the professional
dignity of the French cook, preparing their native stews and other
dishes in Creole style.
He had settled the family in an ostentatious house in the avenida Victor
Hugo, for which he paid a rental of twenty-eight thousand francs. Dona
Luisa had to go and come many times before she could accustom herself to
the imposing aspect of the concierges--he, decorated with gold trimmings
on his black uniform and wearing white whiskers like a notary in a
comedy, she with a chain of gold upon her exuberant bosom, and receiving
the tenants in a red and gold salon. In the rooms above was ultra-modern
luxury, gilded and glacial, with white walls and glass doors with
tiny panes which exasperated Desnoyers, who longed for the complicated
carvings and rich furniture in vogue during his youth.
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