The Black Doll [antikvár]

On tiptoes, tiptoes, so as not to awaken Piedad, Mother and Father enter the bedroom. They come in laughing, like two youngsters. They come in holding hands, like two teenagers. Father comes in behind, as if he were going to trip over everything. Mother doesn't trip, because she knows the way. Father works very hard to buy everything for the house, and so he can't see his daughter whenever he wants! Sometimes, when he's at work, he smiles to himself, or he suddenly feels sad, or his face lights up: he is thinking about his daughter. The pen falls from his hand when he thinks that way, but he begins to write again, and he writes so fast, so fast, it's as though the pen were flying. And the letters have flourishes, and the o's come out as big as the sun, and the g's as long as a sword, and the /'s are under the line, as if they were nailed to the paper, and thes'sfall at the end of the word like a palm leaf. You should see what Father writes when he's been thinking about his little girl! He says that whenever the aroma of the flowers in the garden comes in through his window he thinks about her. Or sometimes, when he's working with numbers, or putting a Swedish book into Spanish, he sees her coming, coming slowly, as if on a cloud. And she sits at his side, she takes the pen from him so that he rests a little, she kisses him on the forehead, she pulls his blond beard, she hides his inkwell. It's only a dream, no more than a dream, the kind that you have when you're not sleeping, in which you see beatiful clothes, or a lively horse with a long tail, or a little wagon pulled by four white goats, or a ring with a blue stone. It is only a dream, but Father says it is as though he had really seen it, and that afterwards he is stronger and writes better. And the little girl leaves, she disappears slowly in the air, she is like light, she drifts away like a cloud. Today Father didn't work very much, because he had to go to a store. Why would Father go to a store? And they say that a big box came in through the back door. What could be in the box? Guess what! Tomorrow it will be eight years since Piedad was born! The maid went to the garden, and she pricked her finger trying to pick a very beautiful flower for a bouquet that she made. Mo-