meant to say; but the words kept escaping me.

She rose, and stood for a while with her back to me and her eyes on the street, while I busied myself with eating the chestnuts. Then she turned toward the vase and began arranging the roses and putting gentle ques-tions to me:

— How old are you? Have you been to São Paulo? Do you work hard at your lessons? Are you religious? Have you made your First Communion?

— I have made my First Communion, but I have not yet been confirmed. When I am

confirmed I shall ask you to be my godmother.

And suddenly a cloud spread over her beautiful face, and her eyes froze, terror showing in them as they looked toward the door; and I saw a fat man advancing toward us. He was strange-looking, wearing on his middle finger a great diamond ring, while a gold chain hung with charms dangled over his white waistcoat. The man shouted:

My darling! My darling!

Then he came toward her with arms outspread, smiling a strange smile that swelled two thick lips, while two reddened eyes bulged.

That figure stirred disgust, and the entrance of such a person into the elegant house seemed strange and unseemly; and I began to tremble, something within me whispering that an extraordi-nary thing was happening. The young woman moved quickly and pressed me to her breast and flattened herself against the wall, to widen the distance between us and the visitor; and as he still kept coming she roared:

— Don't you see the little one? Stop! Stop! And get away from before the door!!

He drew back, astounded, as far as the window. Then with a swift movement she took the box of chestnuts and pushed me outside.

She was trembling like one stricken with malaria, and her yellowed face wrung the heart. I understood nothing, nor did I try to understand; I let her lead me, and when we reached the outer gate we stopped. She looked at me — and never have I seen a look more loving or more sweet! She pushed me gently, and when I was in the street I saw her through the railing, and she seemed to me a prisoner, looking at me and at the world with a look of anxiety and grief! The marks of that grandeur she used to display, like a goddess, were gone from her. She was a humbled creature, speaking imploringly:

— Tell no one, my treasure, that you were here. I ought never to have let you enter this house! I yielded to temptation, and it was my duty to resist it... It was your freshness and your purity, and your likeness to a little one I once knew who was called Maria... But there is no excuse for me, none! I shall never forgive myself. Do not pass this way again, my darling! This street has no place in your world... Make a wide circle when you go to your music lesson, but do not pass this way again!

*

And nights passed while I lay awake in my bed, living those scenes over again. I told no one what had happened; it was as if something in my inmost self imposed silence upon me. In the hours of sleeplessness I would whisper the young woman's name and feel it burn my lips.

And I grew up, and the matter became clear to me the day my companions began to speak in whispers of sin and of the women who live the life of temptation.

And the memory of this woman has remained in my life. She has gone on looking at me through the bars of the railing with those two eyes full of kindness and sweetness and purity!