“I know the place well,” interrupted Mahmoud, “and passed many a merry day there in better times.  Go on, Ricardo.”

“The moment I received information of this party, such an infernal fury of jealousy possessed my soul that I was utterly distraught, as you will see, by what I straightway did; and that was to go to the garden, where I found the whole party taking their pleasure, and Cornelio and Leonisa seated together under a nopal-tree, a little apart from the rest.

“What were their sensations on seeing me I know not, all I know is that my own were such that a cloud came over my sight, and I was like a statue without power of speech or motion.  But this torpor soon gave way to choler, which roused my heart’s blood, and unlocked my hands and my tongue.  My hands indeed were for a while restrained by respect for that divine face before me; but my tongue at least broke silence.

“‘Now hast thou thy heart’s content,’ I cried, ’O mortal enemy of my repose, thine eyes resting with so much composure on the object that makes mine a perpetual fountain of tears!  Closer to him!  Closer to him, cruel girl!  Cling like ivy round that worthless trunk.  Comb and part the locks of that new Ganymede, thy lukewarm admirer.  Give thyself up wholly to the capricious boy on whom thy gaze is fixed, so that losing all hope of winning thee I may lose too the life I abhor.  Dost thou imagine, proud, thoughtless girl, that the laws and usages which are acknowledged in such cases by all mankind, are to give way for thee alone?  Dost thou imagine that this boy, puffed up with his wealth, vain of his looks, presuming upon his birth, inexperienced from his youth, can preserve constancy in love, or be capable of estimating the inestimable, or know what riper years and experience know?  Do not think it.  One thing alone is good in this world, to act always consistently, so that no one be deceived unless it be by his own ignorance.  In extreme youth there is much inconstancy; in the rich there is pride; in the arrogant, vanity; in men who value themselves on their beauty, there is disdain; and in one who unites all these in himself, there is a fatuity which is the mother of all mischief.

“’As for thee, boy, who thinkest to carry off so safely a prize more due to my earnest love than to thy idle philandering, why dost thou not rise from that flowery bank, and tear from my bosom the life which so abhors thine?  And that not for the insult thou puttest upon myself, but because thou knowest not how to prize the blessing which fortune bestows upon thee.  ’Tis plain, indeed, how little thou esteemest it, since thou wilt not budge to defend it for fear of ruffling the finical arrangement of thy pretty attire.  Had Achilles been of as placid temper as thou art, Ulysses would certainly have failed in his attempt, for all his show of glittering arms and burnished helmets.  Go, play among thy mother’s maids; they will help thee to dress thy locks and take care of those dainty hands that are fitter to wind silk than to handle a sword.’