She accepted
all her father's gifts with great indifference. Before an exquisite
blonde piece of lace, centuries old, picked up at auction, she made
a wry face, saying, "I would much rather have had a new dress costing
three hundred francs." She and her brother were solidly opposed to
everything old.
Now that his daughter was already a woman, he had confided her
absolutely to the care of Dona Luisa. But the former "Peoncito" was not
showing much respect for the advice and commands of the good natured
Creole. She had taken up roller-skating with enthusiasm, regarding it as
the most elegant of diversions. She would go every afternoon to the Ice
Palace, Dona Luisa chaperoning her, although to do this she was obliged
to give up accompanying her husband to his sales. Oh, the hours of
deadly weariness before that frozen oval ring, watching the white circle
of balancing human monkeys gliding by on runners to the sound of an
organ! . . . Her daughter would pass and repass before her tired eyes,
rosy from the exercise, spirals of hair escaped from her hat, streaming
out behind, the folds of her skirt swinging above her skates--handsome,
athletic and Amazonian, with the rude health of a child who, according
to her father, "had been weaned on beefsteaks."
Finally Dona Luisa rebelled against this troublesome vigilance,
preferring to accompany her husband on his hunt for underpriced riches.
Pages:
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127