At night when he felt afraid in bed, impressed by the enormousness of the room that served as his sleeping chamber, it was enough for him to recall the sovereign of Byzantium to make him forget immediately his disquietude and the thousand queer noises in the old building.

"Dona Constanza!"...
And he would go off to sleep cuddling the pillow, as though it were the head of the _basilisa_, his closed eyes continuing to see the black eyes of the regal Senora, maternal and affectionate.
All womankind, on coming near him, took on something of that other one who had been sleeping for the past six centuries in the upper part of the chapel wall.

When his mother, sweet and pallid Dona Cristina, would stop her fancy work for an instant to give him a kiss, he always saw in her smile something of the Empress.

When Visenteta, a maid from the country--a brunette, with eyes like blackberries, rosy-cheeked and soft-skinned--would help him to undress, or awaken him to take him to school, Ulysses would always throw his arms around her as though enchanted by the perfume of her vigorous and chaste vitality.
"Visenteta!...

Oh, Visenteta!..." And he was thinking of Dona Constanza; Empresses must be just that fragrant....