As he opened it, several newspapers fell out, containing notices marked by a cross of the volume of poems just published, entitled "Songs of Absence," this being the name chosen by Segundo for his volume of rhymes.

These were accompanied by a letter of four pages from Roberto. What it might contain was of such vital importance to Segundo, so great the influence it might exercise over his future, that he laid it aside fearing, he knew not why, to read it, wishing to defer what he so eagerly desired. The letter lay open before him and certain names, certain words frequently repeated, caught his eye. The name of the widowed SeÑora de Comba was often mentioned in it. To calm his agitation, which was purely nervous, he took up the newspapers, resolving to read first the marked paragraphs. He traversed the via crucis, in the fullest signification of the words.

El Imperial gave a noisy boom to Galicia and, as a proof that the country produced poets in the same abundance as it produced exquisite peaches and beautiful flowers mentioned, without naming him, the author of "Songs of Absence," a beautiful volume just published. And not a line more, not a word of criticism, nothing to indicate that anybody in the office of the popular daily had taken the trouble even to cut the leaves of the book. El Liberal, better informed, declared, in three lines, that "Songs of Absence" gave evidence of the author's great facility in versification. La Epoca, in the most obscure corner of its department, "New Books," eulogized the typographical elegance of the book; disapproved of the romantic savor of the title and of the title-page, and deplored in trenchant phrases that the poet should have sought inspiration in the barren theme of absence when there were so many wholesome, cheerful and fruitful subjects on which to write. El Dia——

Ah, as for El Dia, it gave Segundo a castigation in style: not one of those angry, predetermined, energetic castigations, in which the lash is taken up with both hands to crush a powerful and dangerous adversary, but a contemptuous cut of the whip, a flick with the nail, as it were, as one might brush away a troublesome insect; one of those summary criticisms in which the critic does not take the trouble to adduce proof or argument in support of his criticisms, whose justice he deems so evident as not to require demonstration; an execution by a few jests, but jests of a kind that extinguish a new author, crush him, relegate him forever to the limbo of obscurity. The critic said that now when verses of supreme merit lacked readers it was greatly to be deplored that the press should be made to groan with rhymes of an inferior quality; that now when Becquer had been placed in the pantheon of the immortals it was a crime to treat him with the disrespect of stupidly imitating him, mutilating and counterfeiting his best thoughts; and finally, that it was to be regretted that estimable young men, endowed, perhaps, with admirable capabilities for trade, or for the career of an apothecary or a notary, should spend their parents' money in costly editions of verses which no one would either buy or read.

Underneath this philippic Roberto Blanquez had written: "Pay no attention to this ass. Read my article."

And indeed in an obscure, insignificant sheet, one of those innumerable periodicals that see the light in Madrid without Madrid ever seeing them, Blanquez poured forth the gall of his wounded friendship and patriotism—taking the critic to task, eulogizing Segundo's book and declaring him the worthy compeer of Becquer, with the difference that the former was a little sweeter, a little more dreamy, a little more melancholy, as being the son of a land as beautiful as it was unfortunate, and which was fairer than Andalusia, than Switzerland, or than any other country on the face of the globe; ending by saying that if Becquer had been born in Galicia he would feel, think, and write like The Swan of Vilamorta.

Segundo seized the bundle of newspapers and, after looking at them for a moment fixedly and with a gloomy brow, tore them into pieces, large at first, then small, then smaller still, which he threw out of the window to hover for a moment in the air like butterflies or like the silvery petals of the flower of illusion, and then fall into the nearest pool. Segundo smiled bitterly. "There goes fame," he said to himself. "Now I think I am calmer. Let us see what the letter says."

Of this letter we need cite here only certain passages, supplementing them with the comments made on them in his mind by the reader.

"According to your request I went to the house of SeÑora de Comba to deliver to her the copy, so carefully wrapped up and sealed, which you sent me for that purpose."—Of course. It contained an inscription which I did not want her to think that you might have read.—"She has a beautiful house, hangings and natural flowers everywhere."—Everything pertaining to her is like that, beautiful and refined.—"But I was obliged to return several times before she would receive me, the moment was always inopportune."—She does not receive indiscriminately all who may chance to present themselves.—"At last she received me, after innumerable ceremonies and formalities. She is very beautiful close by, more beautiful, even, than at a distance, and it seems impossible that she should have a daughter twelve years old; she looks at most twenty-four or twenty-five."—What news Roberto has to tell me.—"The moment I told her I had come on your part"—Let us hear—"she became—what shall I say?"—red—"displeased and annoyed, my boy, and in addition so serious, that I was quite taken aback, and did not know what to do."—Infamous! Infamous!—"She was afraid that I"—Let us hear; let us finish, let us finish.—"She refused to receive the book, in spite of my urgent entreaties"—but this is inconceivable. Ah, what a woman!—"because she says it would remind her too forcibly of that place and of the death of her husband, whom God keep in his glory; and consequently she begs you to excuse her"—wretch!—"from opening the package and reading your verse, for which she thanks you."—Ha! ha! ha!—Bravo! What an actress!

"Notwithstanding all this, as you had charged me explicitly to deliver it to her, I determined not to take the book back with me and, taking up my hat and saluting her, I laid your package on a table. On the following morning, however, it came back to me unopened, with all its seals intact."—And I did not throw her into the Avieiro that day when our lips—the more fool I! Well, let us finish.

"In view of the little widow's conduct I imagine that you must have invented all that about the window and the precipice; you must have told it to me to fool me or, as you are so imaginative, you dreamed that it happened and you took the dream for reality."—He does well to mock me.—"At all events, my boy, if you were interested in the widow, think no more about her. I know to a certainty, through my cousins, who have it for a fact from their father, that at the expiration of the period of her mourning she is to marry a certain Marquis de Cameros who represented at one time a district in Lugo."—Yes, yes, I understand.—"The thing is serious, for, according to what my cousins say, the house linen is being embroidered already with the coronet of a marchioness."

The letter was torn still more slowly and into still smaller pieces than the newspapers. With the fragments Segundo made a ball which he threw far into the middle of the pool. "Such is love," he said to himself, laughing bitterly.

He began to walk up and down the room, at first with a certain monotonous regularity, then restlessly and with fury. Clara, the eldest of his sisters, half opened the door of the room, saying:

"Aunt GÁspara says you are to come."

"What for?"

"Dinner is ready."

Segundo took his hat and rushing into the street walked toward the river, filled with that species of fury which one who has just received some mental shock, some bitter disappointment, is apt to feel at being called on to take part in any of the ordinary concerns of life.