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"Well," said I, as I looked at the tables, with their snowy-white cloths, tumblers, wine-glasses and what not, and at the walls of the room glittering with mirrors, "surely a poet never kept so magnificent an inn before; there must be something in this fellow besides the awen, or his house would never exhibit such marks of prosperity and good taste there must be something in this fellow; though he pretends to be a wild erratic son of Parnassus, he must have an eye to the main chance, a genius for turning the penny, or rather the sovereign, for the accommodation here is no penny accommodation, as I shall probably find.
The aspect of this hell did not strike me as particularly grand. An uneven wall of lava suddenly rose fifteen paces in advance of us, with whole strata of pure sulphur and other beautifully-coloured substances depending from its projecting angles. One of these substances was of a snowy-white colour, light, and very porous.
The old man was tall and spare, and from his snowy-white majestic beard I took him to be about seventy years old; but he was straight as an arrow, and his free movements and elastic tread were those of a much younger man.
Having placed the jug by the side of the man in black, she brought him a glass and spoon, and a tea-cup, the latter containing various lumps of snowy-white sugar: in the meantime I had produced a bottle of the stronger liquid.
Over it hung the delicious fragrance of freshly-baked pastry. Bella, a rather baleful look in her eyes, led the way to the butler's pantry that was as large as the average kitchen. And there, ranged on platters, and baking boards, and on snowy-white napkins, was that which made Tantalus's feast seem a dry and barren snack. The Weinberg's had baked.
Soon I discovered it was a fox of a peculiar color which I had not seen before. I lay flat on the snow, as the animal was coming in my direction. He was evidently hungry, and was hunting ptarmigans himself. When he came within shooting distance I fired and killed him. He was a white fox, but much of his snowy-white fur had dropped, and was replaced by bluish.
At last he shouted out: "Enough!" flung himself with all his force into the water, that spurted up as if a huge block of stone had been thrown into it, held his head for a long time under water, and then went up the marble steps of the bath shaking his head violently and mischievously in his boyish insolence, so as thoroughly to wet his friends and servants who were standing round the margin of the basin; he suffered himself to be wrapped in snowy-white sheets of the thinnest and finest linen, to be sprinkled with costly essences of delicate odor, and then he withdrew into a small room hung all round with gaudy hangings.
Robed in snowy-white linen, with new sandals on his feet, freshly shaven, and protected from the sun's rays by a crisply curled, flowing wig, after the manner of his fathers, as well as by an umbrella, he mounted his beautiful white ass in the conviction that he had done his best for his outer man, and set forth, followed by his black slave trotting on foot.
Then for us too it became more endurable and we sat for hours hand in hand gazing at the glorious play of colors on the waves, blue-black, seething light-blue, and foaming snowy-white. From time to time we spoke of the great things that always occupied our thoughts. For we felt that in these great things alone could lie our justification and our peace of mind.
I may also mention that the birds of La Plata seem to fear the kite-like Elanus less than other hawks, and I believe that its singular resemblance to the common gull of the district in its size, snowy-white plumage and manner of flight, has a deceptive effect on most species, and makes them so little suspicious of it,
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