But the weather seemed determined to favor the travelers, and shortly after their arrival in Vichy began a series of days as brilliant and serene as it was possible for days to be in autumn, that season so peculiarly serene, especially in its early part.
The sky was clear and cloudless, the air genial, vegetation in all the plenitude of its splendor of coloring and growth; the afternoons were long, the mornings were bright, and Lucía availed herself of this conjunction of favorable circumstances to persuade Pilar to take a trip into the country in accordance with the doctor’s advice. It was a part of the treatment that Pilar should take rides on a donkey in order that the uneven trot of the animal might serve her as exercise, setting her blood in motion without fatiguing her; and although the sick girl cordially detested this species of conveyance, and, until they emerged from the town, persisted in going on foot, dragging herself laboriously along rather than mount it, yet she consented to do so when they were outside the town. The exercise excited her, and imparted a faint color to her cheeks. Lucía would joke with her about her appearance.
“You see how beneficial it is to ride a spirited steed,” she would say. “You look splendid; you look like a different person; see, to make a conquest, all you have to do is to take a turn up and down as you are now, before the Casino, when the band is playing.”
“Horrors!” exclaimed the sick girl, with a little cry. “What if the Amézegas were to see me--they who never ride except in a jaunting car or a brougham!”
The two friends would go sometimes to the Montagne Verte, sometimes to the Source des Dames, sometimes to the intermittent spring of Vesse. The Montagne Verte is the highest point in the neighborhood of Vichy. The hill is covered with vegetation, but scrubby vegetation, scarcely rising above the surface of the earth, so that from a distance it looked to them like the head of a giant covered with short and very thick hair. When they reached the summit, they ascended to the mirador, and looked through the great field-glass, examining the immense panorama that lay spread before them. The gentle slopes, clad with vines, descended to the Allier, which wound in the distance like an enormous blue snake. Far away the chain of the Fonez raised its snow-capped hills, the giants of Auvergne, vaporous and gray, looked like cloud-phantoms; the castle of Borbon Busset emerged from the mists, its seignorial towers casting into the shade the peaceful palace of Randan, with all the disdain of a legitimate Bourbon for the degenerate branch of Orleans. Lucía’s favorite excursion was to the Source des Dames; a narrow footpath, shaded by leafy trees, gently followed the course of the Sichon, pausing, when the river paused to form a shallow lake, and then continuing its winding course along the border of the tranquil stream. At every step some picturesque accident broke the monotony of the rows of poplars and elms,--now a lavatory, now a little house standing on the river’s brink, now a dam, now a mill, now a duck pond. The mill, in particular, seemed as if it might have been placed there by some landscape painter for artistic effect. Ancient and moss-grown, it rested on wooden posts that were slowly decaying in the water; in the center of the structure the wheel gleamed like an enormous eye shining in the brown and wrinkled forehead of a Cyclops. The drops of liquid silver that leaped from spoke to spoke with every revolution one might fancy tears dropping from the immense eye, and the groan to which the massive wheel gave utterance as it turned completed the resemblance, imitating the breathing of the monster. Through the ill-joined planks of a bridge, boldly thrown across the very bend of the cataract which formed the dam, could be caught glimpses of the water foaming and roaring below. In the dam some half-dozen ducks were lazily paddling, and innumerable sparrows flew hither and thither under the irregular eaves of the roof, while in the dark aperture of one of the irregularly placed windows grew a pot of petunias. Lucía loved to sit and watch the mill from the bank opposite, lulled by the monotonous snore of the wheel and the gentle plash of the water. Pilar preferred the intermittent spring, which procured her the emotions of which her sickly organization was so avid. The spring was reached by a pleasant path, and from the bridge could be obtained a fine view of the surrounding country.