[Green Mansions by W. H. Hudson]@TWC D-Link bookGreen Mansions CHAPTER X 11/18
And as she sat there, panting and grinning with laughter, I knelt before her and, with suitable passionate gestures, declaimed again the old delicate lines sung by Mena before Columbus sailed the seas: Muy mas clara que la luna Sola una en el mundo vos nacistes tan gentil, que no vecistes ni tavistes competedora ninguna Desdi ninez en la cuna cobrastes fama, beldad, con tanta graciosidad, que vos doto la fortuna. Thinking of another all the time! O poor old Cla-cla, knowing not what the jingle meant nor the secret of my wild happiness, now when I recall you sitting there, your old grey owlish head crowned with scarlet passion flowers, flushed with firelight, against the background of smoke-blackened walls and rafters, how the old undying sorrow comes back to me! Thus our evening was spent, merrily enough; then we made up the fire with hard wood that would last all night, and went to our hammocks, but wakeful still.
The old dame, glad and proud to be on duty once more, religiously went to work to talk me to sleep; but although I called out at intervals to encourage her to go on, I did not attempt to follow the ancient tales she told, which she had imbibed in childhood from other white-headed grandmothers long, long turned to dust.
My own brain was busy thinking, thinking, thinking now of the woman I had once loved, far away in Venezuela, waiting and weeping and sick with hope deferred; now of Rima, wakeful and listening to the mysterious nightsounds of the forest--listening, listening for my returning footsteps. Next morning I began to waver in my resolution to remain absent from Rima for some days; and before evening my passion, which I had now ceased to struggle against, coupled with the thought that I had acted unkindly in leaving her, that she would be a prey to anxiety, overcame me, and I was ready to return.
The old woman, who had been suspiciously watching my movements, rushed out after me as I left the house, crying out that a storm was brewing, that it was too late to go far, and night would be full of danger.
I waved my hand in good-bye, laughingly reminding her that I was proof against all perils.
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