of my soul. And behind the roses a woman appeared.

In her hand was a green watering can, which she tilted, letting the abundant water stream from it over the shrubs of the garden. The drops of water glittered on the shining leaves like the stones of jewels. And in the young woman's hair were combs of tortoiseshell set with beads of diamond. She wore a loose, flowing gown that showed the lines of her body indistinctly, while her two white arms wound among the flowers, twisting and supple, as serpents undulate. And her strange, beautiful face was unlike any face I had ever seen! A luminous face, deep in meaning like a watercolor. As for her lashes, they had — when she lowered them against the glare of the sun — light flutterings like the startled stumblings of frightened birds.

She said:

— Do you love roses?

I nodded, overcome with shyness. She went toward a kind of tent over which the plants had made an arbor, and came back carrying a scissors, with which she cut me four great roses. I thanked her lovingly, my eyes fastened upon her face. Never in my life had I seen a creature of flesh and bone of such beauty.

And, so as to say something, I asked:

— Is the house yours?

— Yes, it is my house. Do you find it beautiful?

Of course I found it beautiful, like the mansions of the cinema, with its red tiles and the vines embracing its walls. On the small square windows were curtains of dotted organza — "Indian gauze"

— and before the entrance, beds planted with red geraniums.

Then the young woman gathered her gown about her white neck, and with an elegant motion bent her head in a gentle bow and began to withdraw; and I raised my eyes to her golden hair and to a face of hers that had no like!

And I went on thinking of her as of a strange vision. I spoke of her to no one. When night came and I went into my room, I resolved to ask my mother, when she went to São Paulo, to buy a loose "kimono" embroidered with flowers and birds. And I shut my eyes, striving to picture my mother in that gown, watering the flowers like that woman. The vision did not satisfy me...

For the hair was not that hair, and the figure was not that figure...