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As she passed the Brull door on her way to church, she would greet his mother; and doña Bernarda would remark in a patronizing way: "Doña Pepa is a very fine woman; one of God's own souls.... The only decent person in her family." "Yes; I remember; I remember doña Pepa," said Rafael. "Well, your 'foreigner," don Andrés continued, "is doña Pepa's niece, daughter of her brother, the doctor.
And it was the poor woman's superstitious terror, the conviction of damnation that had seized on doña Pepa's simple soul, that wounded Leonora most deeply. "They've robbed me of all I had in the world," she murmured desperately, "of the affection of the only dear one left after my father died.
Only yesterday he went to doña Pepa's farmhouse to greet the 'eminent artist, as he calls her. There's no end to what he tells. Trunks in every corner, enough to pack a house-full of things into, and silk dresses ... shopfuls of them! Hats, I can't say how many; jewelry-boxes on every table with diamonds that strike you blind.
Rafael listened in silence, scanning his face anxiously, as if looking for a chance to speak of something which he dared not broach. "And how about the Blue House," he ventured finally, "that farm of doña Pepa's where you go sometimes? Will anything be wrong down there?"
Doña Pepa's spirits rallied now that men were in the house; and with a supreme effort of will, the old lady decided to leave her armchair for a look at the flood, which had stopped rising, if, indeed, it were not actually receding. "How much water, oh Lord our God!... How many terrible things we'll learn of tomorrow!
"It's a good solid place," the barber replied, "and this isn't the first flood it's been through.... But it's right on the river, and by this time the garden must be a lake; the water will surely be up to the second story. I'll bet doña Pepa's poor niece is scared out of her wits... Just imagine coming from so far away and from such pretty places, and running into a mess like this ..."
People told hair-raising tales of that expedition down the river, of walks through the orange groves, of nights spent at doña Pepa's house, Rafael entering in the dark, in his stocking feet, like a thief; of silhouettes of the lovers outlined in suggestive poses against the bedroom curtain; of their appearing in windows their arms about each other's waists, looking at the stars everything sworn to by voluntary spies, who could say "I saw it with my own eyes" persons who had spent whole nights, on the river-bank, behind some fence, in some clump of bushes, to surprise the deputy on his way to or from his assignations.
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