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The elections set the whole District agog. The crucial moment for the House of Brull had come, and all its loyal henchmen, as though still uncertain of the Party's omnipotence, and fearing the sudden appearance of hidden enemies, were running this way and that about the city and the outlying towns, shouting Rafael's name as a clarion call to victory.
"All I've been telling you boys, happened long before your day, and your parents, who knew the Doctor and his daughter, have always been careful not to bring this woman into their conversation; for, as Rafael's mother says, she's the disgrace of Alcira.
Doña Bernarda, in fact, had not been slow in detecting her son's new friendship. To begin with, her one concern in life was Rafael's health and conduct. And in that gossipy inquisitive country-town, her son could do virtually nothing which she did not know all about in the course of a few hours.
"Over in the museum at the arsenal" Rafael's voice broke in his excitement "there is a model of a ship of state, in which, for hundreds of years, the Doge used every year to go out to the entrance of the lagoon and throw a jewelled ring into the waters of the Adriatic, to make Venice the bride of the sea. "People from far and wide, by thousands and tens of thousands, came to see the ceremony.
The next day the history of the two entertainments and the collision between the guests went the round of the papers. This produced results which Fru Kaas had not foreseen. The first was a very pleasant one. The professor who had had Rafael's first article published drove up to the door, accompanied by his family.
The old man winced under the flash of anger that blazed in Rafael's eyes. They had just crossed another bridge, and were entering the city again. Don Andrés, wretched coward that he was, sidled away to be within reach of the customs' office if the fist he could already see cleaving the air should come his way. Rafael, in fact, stopped in his tracks, glaring.
An indiscreet remark of Cupido had even brought her to the bottom of that mysterious and perilous night trip down the flooded river not to rescue a "poor family," but to call on that comica that "chorus girl" as doña Bernarda called Leonora in a furious burst of scorn. Stormy scenes occurred that were to leave a strong undercurrent of bitterness and fear in Rafael's character.
At the end of the summer the good blacksmith decided to follow Don Rafael's advice. As long as he was so good as to consent to helping the boy, he was not going to be the one to interfere with his good fortune. The shop gave him enough to live on. All it meant was to work a few years longer, to support himself till the end of his life beside the anvil, without an assistant or a successor.
"See how carefully that boy is cutting the grapes from the vines," observed Edith, pointing to a lad about Rafael's age, who sang as he worked, and who lifted the luscious, purple clusters of fruit into his basket as lovingly as if they could feel the touch of his hand. Mrs. Sprague called attention to some of the vines, which had already been stripped of leaves as well as fruit.
For a time she could not answer, her voice was too choked with weeping. At last, however, between sobs, burying her tear-stained face on Rafael's shoulder, she began to speak, completely crushed, fainting from virtual prostration. She could stand it no longer! The torture was becoming unbearable. It was useless for her to pretend. She knew as well as he what people were saying in the city.
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