He got up again and went on, hisservices accepted
without question.
Perhaps, if he had returned, she would have
accepted him.
After a while the vision of the mountain faded. The
man could feel himselfreliving his own youth.
To returnwould be to return to all of it, too. If
there had been a tree inthe prison close, he would once more have climbed
it.
He traversed rapidly the same route over which he
had toiledsouthward only a few years before.
Their wedding feast wasserved by the Indians of the
place. They reminded him forcibly of the statues onthe front of the
building.
She damn near chewed myear off one
morning.
Dolores was generally regardedas an able, powerful,
and worldly woman.
Theirobjective was a certain detached mountain with
a village on it.
Once havingsettled the amount of a stipend, she
would not for any reasonwhatever increase it. Anthony declined the pleasure and all
but fled through the door. Some nuns entered from a side door and waited until he
let them in. In his grey face thesufferers eyes gleamed with
satisfaction.
The sheep and cattle rushed forward bawling tocrop
the sweet herbage.
She devoted herself to theadministration of her
mines and haciendas.
No, he answered, I find them marvellously
cheerful.
Do not try to think about the soul after death,
señor.
Believeme, señor, when I return home from this
hospital it is from thesublime to the ridiculous.
Lopez hada pension settled upon them from a
mysterious but charitablesource.
It was some timebefore Anthony was
liberated.
He cupped his hands andplunged them in the channel,
bringing them up again like a brimmingcup. He stepped through it into the open air
and sunlight, and for amoment felt free again. And then suddenly he found that all
he had beenlooking for lay within.
Ill see to the stretchers, hesaid to her.
Inexplicably he felt it being renewedwithin him. Their eyes glared out of rocky
sockets left roughas when the chisels had ceased. He cupped his hands andplunged
them in the channel, bringing them up again like a brimmingcup.