Therefore listen to me now, O mother, and let nothing I say escape you.
"When this white man had been for some days with us, a strange thing happened to me, which made me different, so that I was no longer Rima, although Rima still--so strange was this thing; and I often went to the pool to look at myself and see the change in me, but nothing different could I see.

In the first place it came from his eyes passing into mine, and filling me just as the lightning fills a cloud at sunset: afterwards it was no longer from his eyes only, but it came into me whenever I saw him, even at a distance, when I heard his voice, and most of all when he touched me with his hand.

When he is out of my sight I cannot rest until I see him again; and when I see him, then I am glad, yet in such fear and trouble that I hide myself from him.

O mother, it could not be told; for once when he caught me in his arms and compelled me to speak of it, he did not understand; yet there was need to tell it; then it came to me that only to our people could it be told, for they would understand, and reply to me, and tell me what to do in such a case.
"And now, O mother, this is what happened next.

I went to grandfather and first begged and then commanded him to take me to Riolama; but he would not obey, nor give attention to what I said, but whenever I spoke to him of it he rose up and hurried from me; and when I followed he flung back a confused and angry reply, saying in the same breath that it was so long since he had been to Riolama that he had forgotten where it was, and that no such place existed.