It looked peaceful, delicate, almost Japanese. As she drew nearer she saw the beach with the washing spread on the sand; the fleecy green willow trees and pepper-trees, and the villas in foliage and flowers, hanging magenta curtains of bougainvillea, red dots of hibiscus, pink abundance of tall oleander trees; occasional palm-trees sticking out.
The boat was steering round a stone jetty, on which, in black letters, was painted an advertisement for motor-car tyres. There were a few seats, some deep fleecy trees growing out of the sand, a booth for selling drinks, a little promenade, and white boats on a sandy beach. A few women sitting under parasols, a few bathers in the water, and trees in front of the few villas deep in green or blazing scarlet blossoms.
“This is very good,” thought Kate. “It is not too savage, and not over civilised. It isn’t broken, but it is rather out of repair. It is in contact with the world, but the world has got a very weak grip on it.”
She went to the hotel, as Don Ramón had advised her.
“Do you come from Orilla? You are Mrs Leslie? Don Ramón Carrasco sent us a letter about you.”
There was a house. Kate paid her boatmen and shook hands with them. She was sorry to be cut off from them again. And they looked at her with a touch of regret as they left. She said to herself:
“There is something rich and alive in these people. They want to be able to breathe the Great Breath. They are like children, helpless. And then they’re like demons. But somewhere, I believe, they want the breath of life and the communion of the brave, more than anything.”
She was surprised at herself, suddenly using this language. But her weariness and her sense of devastation had been so complete, that the Other Breath in the air, and the bluish dark power in the earth had