Segundo frequently accompanied him in these hours of retirement. They talked together like two friends, and the statesman, far from insisting on the ideas he had expressed in Las Vides, encouraged the poet, offering him to endeavor to obtain a position for him in Madrid which should enable him to carry out his plans.
"A position that will not take up much of your time, nor require much mental labor--I will see, I will see. I will be on the lookout for something."
Segundo observed unmistakable signs of improved health in the wrinkled face of the Minister. Don Victoriano was experiencing the transitory benefit which mineral waters produce at first, stimulating the organism only to waste it all the more rapidly, perhaps, afterward. Both digestion and circulation had become more active, and perspiration, even, entirely suppressed by the disease, had become re-established, dilating the pores with grateful warmth and communicating to the dry fibers the elasticity of healthy flesh. As a candle flares up brightly before going out, so Don Victoriano seemed to be recovering strength when in reality he was wasting away. Fancying health was returning to him, he breathed with delight the narrow atmosphere of party intrigues, taking pleasure in disputing his district inch by inch, in winning over adherents and receiving demonstrations of sympathy, and secretly flattered by the absurd proposal made by his parishioners to the parish priest of Vilamorta, that incense should be burned before him. In the evening he amused himself patriarchally among Agonde's visitors, listening to the comical stories told of the clique at Doña Eufrasia's shop and enjoying the ripple of excitement occasioned by the proximity of the feasts. Little by little the innocent tresillo table of Agonde had become transformed into something much more wicked. Now, instead of four persons being seated at it, there was only one, around whom, their eyes fixed on his hands, the others stood grouped. The banker's left hand grasped the cards tightly while with the ball of his thumb he pushed up the last card until first the spot could be descried, then the number, then the knob of a club, the point of a diamond, the blue tail of a horse, the turreted crown of a king, and other hands took up stakes or took money from the pocket and laid it down on the fateful pieces of cardboard with the words: