The coffee of the restaurant of Venta de Baños was neither very pure nor very aromatic, and yet when for the first time Lucía introduced the little spoon filled with the liquid between her lips, when she tasted its slight bitterness and inhaled the warm fumes rising from it, she felt a profound thrill run through her frame, something like an expansion of her being, as if all her senses had opened simultaneously like the buds of a tree bursting into bloom at once. The glass of Chartreuse, sipped slowly, left in her mouth a penetrating and strengthening odor, a slight and pleasant thirst, extinguished by the last sips of the coffee sweetened by the powdered sugar that lay in little eddies at the bottom of the cup.
“If papa were to see me now,” she murmured, “what would he say?”
Miranda and Lucía were the last to rise from the table. The other passengers were already scattered about in groups on the platform, waiting to obtain seats in the express which had just arrived and which stood, vibrating still with its recent motion, in front of the railway station.
“Come,” said Miranda, “the train is going to start. I don’t know whether we shall be able to find a vacant compartment or not.”
They began their peregrination, passing through all the coaches in turn in search of a vacant compartment. They found one at last, not without some difficulty, and took possession of it, throwing their parcels on the cushions. The opaque light of the lantern, filtering through the blue silk curtain, the dull, uniform, gray hue of the covers, the silence, the air of repose succeeding the glare and confusion of the restaurant, invited to rest and sleep, and Lucía unfastened the elastic of her hat, which she took off and placed in the rack.
“I feel dizzy,” she said, passing her hand over her forehead. “My head aches a little--I am warm.”
“The wines, the coffee,” responded Miranda, gaily. “Rest for a moment while I go to inventory the luggage. It is an indispensable formality here.” Saying this, he lifted one of the cushions of the coach, placed the rolled-up rug under it for a pillow, and raised the arm dividing the two seats, saying:
“There, you have as comfortable a bed as you could wish for.”