Although Lucía, and still more Pilar, felt fatigued after the long railway journey, they could not help admiring the beauty of the abode which fate had allotted them. The balcony, especially, they thought delightful for sewing or reading. It brought to Pilar’s mind the many water-color scenes, landscapes painted on fans, and sentimental pictures that she had seen representing the now hackneyed subject of a young girl with her head framed in foliage. Lucía, on her side, compared her house in Leon, antique, massive, bare and gloomy, with this dwelling, where all was neat and bright, from the shining waxed floors to the curtains of blue cretonne adorned with clusters of pink bell-flowers. When Lucía sprang out of bed on the day following that of their arrival, her first impulse was to go out into the balcony; from thence she went down into the garden, fastening up her morning gown with pins, to keep it from being wet by the damp grass. She looked at the roses, fresh from their bath of dew, lifting themselves proudly on their stems, each with its necklace of pearls or diamonds. She inhaled the odor of each in turn, passing her fingers over their leaves without daring to pluck them. At this hour the roses had scarcely any perfume; what she perceived was, rather, the aroma of the general freshness and moistness that rose from the beds of flowers and from the surrounding trees. In Vichy there are trees everywhere; in the afternoon, when Lucía and Pilar went out to see something of the town, they uttered exclamations of delight at every turn at the sight of some tree, some alley, or some park. Pilar thought Vichy had an elegant aspect; Lucía, less well-informed in matters of elegance and fashion, enjoyed simply the spectacle of so much verdure, so much nature, which rested her eyes, making her think at times that, notwithstanding its crowded streets and its brilliant shops, Vichy was a village, exactly suited to gratify her secret desire and need for solitude. A village of palaces, with all the adornments and refinements of comfort and luxury characteristic of our age, but a village after all.
Pilar and Miranda began to take the waters simultaneously, although with the difference of method required by the different natures of their maladies. Miranda drank the powerful water of the Grande Grille, undergoing at the same time a complicated course of treatment of local effusions, baths and douches, while the anæmic girl drank in small doses the pungent, gaseous, and ferruginous water of the Source des Dames. From this time forth a constant struggle went on between Pilar and those who had charge of her. It was necessary to use heroic efforts to prevent her leading the same life as the fashionable visitors, who spent the entire day in displaying their toilets and amusing themselves. From this point of view the presence in Vichy of some six or eight Spanish ladies, acquaintances of the Gonzalvos, who intended to remain till the end of the season, was pernicious to Pilar. The best and most brilliant part of the season was over; the races, the pigeon-shooting, the public excursions in chaise and omnibus to the Bourbonese, beginning in August, had ended in the early part of September. But there still remained the concerts in the Park, the promenade on the asphalt-paved avenue, the nightly entertainments in the Casino; the theater, which, now soon to close, was more and more crowded every night. Pilar was dying to join the dozen or so of her fashionable compatriots who were participating in the short-lived round of watering-place gayeties. The physician at Vichy who attended Pilar, while he recommended amusements for Miranda, prohibited strictly to the anæmic girl every species of excitement, advising her strongly to avail herself of the semi-rural character of the town to lead a country life as far as was possible, going to bed with the chickens and rising with the sun. This regimen required a great deal of perseverance on the part of the patient, and, more than this, to have some one constantly at her side who should oblige her to follow strictly the doctor’s orders. Neither Miranda nor Perico was calculated for this office. Miranda complied with the social requirements, exhorting Pilar to “take care of herself,” and “not to be imprudent,” with that fictitious interest which egotists display when the health of another is in question. Perico grew angry at seeing his sister pay so little heed to the advice of the doctor, a neglect that might delay the cure, and consequently prolong their stay in Vichy; but he was incapable of watching over her and seeing that she carried out the orders she had received. He would say to her at times: