“Ah,” I murmured, unable to keep back a mischievous remark. “So the door of the harem was opened to you?”
“Yes,” replied the friar, with great simplicity; “and do you want to hear a description of my friend’s favorite, the chosen one, I say, of this Moorish friend of mine, who was a very wealthy man in that place?”
“I have already told you that I am but a poor judge, and can only describe her outward appearance; and you may decide for yourself. She wore a rich silk dress, cut low in the neck, which was covered with diamond necklaces and strings of big pearls. She had on at least two or three. She wore large gold bands on her arms, like those described by Cervantes in his novel _El Cautivo_. Haven’t you read it? Well, that was the kind. Then there were cushions and cushions and more cushions; some under her arms, others under her hips, and others behind her head. Their purpose was to prevent her chafing herself, for she was almost bursting with fat, which is the secret of beauty among Moorish women. This one could not stir. Do you know how they used to fatten her? Why, with little bread balls, and in such numbers that it could no longer be called fattening a woman, but cramming her. She was smoking through a tube as long as this, and in front of her she had a little table inlaid with mother-of-pearl, which was covered with sweetmeats and various drinks.”
“Ah, you old rogue of a friar!” I thought. “You pretend to be very simple and innocent, though you are really the greatest and most crafty rogue in the world. You are boring me with all this gossip about the Moors so as not to drop anything about my prospective aunt. But I’ll catch you yet! Just wait!” So I said aloud:
“Father Moreno, as you can describe a Moorish woman so well, you can surely draw the likeness of a Christian woman. At least, you might inform me whether my uncle’s betrothed is stuffed with bread balls, or if she has a slender and graceful figure, like the palm-tree of the desert. Come, Father!”
We were ascending the stony path which runs along the inclosure of Tejo, and there we could not walk side by side. So the friar turned around and faced me, in order to reply. The last rays of the sun had disappeared, but in the twilight I could see his eyes gleam, while he answered me with a strange mixture of sportive grace and earnestness: