urniture, clothing
and pottery seemed always to be impregnated with the light of steady
sunshine and with the blue of an always clear atmosphere.

Don Esteban, who believed himself obliged to be an antiquarian by
virtue of his membership in various local societies, was continually
filling up his house with mementoes of the past picked up in the
villages, or that his clients freely gave him. He was not able to find
wall space enough for the pictures, nor room in his salons for the
furniture. Therefore, the latest acquisitions were provisionally taking
their way to the _porche_ to await definite installation. Years
afterward, when he should retire from his profession, he might be able
to construct a medieval castle--the most medieval possible on the
coasts of the _Marina_; near to the village where he had been born, he
would put each object in a place appropriate to its importance.

Whatever the notary deposited in the rooms of the first floor would
soon make its appearance in the garret as mysteriously as though it had
acquired feet; for Dona Cristina and her servants, obliged to live in a
continual struggle with the dust and cobwebs of an edifice that was
slowly dropping to pieces, were beginning to feel a ferocious hatred of
everything old.

Up here on the top floor, discords and battles because of lack of
things to dress up in, were not possible among the boys. They had only
to sink their hands into any one of the great old chests, pulsing with
the dull gnawing of the wood-borers, whose iron fretwork, pierced like
lace, was dropping away from its supports. Some of the youngsters,
brandishing short, small swords with hilts of mother-of-pearl, or long
blades such as the Cid carried, would then wrap themselves in mantles
of crimson silk darkened by ages. Others would throw over their
shoulders damask counterpanes of priceless old brocade, peasant skirts
with great flowers of gold, farthingales of richly woven texture that
crackled like paper.

When they grew tired of imitating comedians with noisy clashing of
spades and death-blows, Ulysses and the other active lads would propose
the game of "Bandits and Bailiffs." But thieves could not go clad in
such rich cloths; their attire ought to be inconspicuous. And so they
overturned some mountains of dull-colored stuffs that appeared like
mere sacking in whose dull woven designs could be dimly discerned legs,
arms, heads, and branching sprays of metallic green.

Don Este