them? They would not move a finger to attract summer visitors. None of that desire to please, that neatness of the people of our country.”
{40}
“One must either choke this Don Nicanor or take no notice of what he says,” exclaimed Nuño Rasura, furious, “for he won’t listen to argument. Where is that network of railroads he{41} talks about? A pretty network! Full of holes. He wants everything to be done in a day; no one but God can work miracles! Everything needs time and patience. Let Don Nicanor take note of the growing importance of beautiful Vigo. Its cool climate, its coasts and rivers are the admiration of the newspapers. And the women—always excepting those present, but then my good friend is from there, too. And the fish, the like of which is to be found nowhere else, what do you say of that? My dear Doña Aurora, I have eaten neither sardines nor soles since I left there. Just before the downfall of O’Donnell, I remember we were taking baths in Marin, and they brought a turbot to the door that——”
{41}
Here the old man went on spinning the thread of memory, and Rogelio, leaning with his elbow on the sofa, his cheek in the palm of his hand, listened absorbed. It seemed to him as if he{42}
{42}
“Rogelio ... his cheek in the palm of his hand, listened absorbed.”
were listening to some family tradition. The apartment, and the people in it assumed an air of friendly intimacy; the atmosphere, moral and material, was genial; the world was as comfortable and easy for him as the cushion against which he leaned. Each of the company was for him, if not a father, at the least an uncle. Around him reigned sweet security; and as in certain{43} luxurious abodes embarrassment and privation betray themselves, so in this modest dining-room was plainly visible domestic comfort, the most perfect golden mediocrity that poet could dream or philosopher desire. Harmony and moderation are always beautiful, and Rogelio, without being able to define this beauty that surrounded him, felt it and sheltered himself in it as the bird shelters itself among the feathers of its nest. And while the blazing logs crackled in the fireplace, and the sounds of the mortar came softened from the kitchen, and the old men chatted and his mother knitted her stocking, the boy, plunged in vague reverie, tried to picture to himself what that beautiful country, that green Galicia, abounding in rivers, in flowers, and in lovely girls was like.{44}
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