His brain, still heavy with sleep, could not unravel the memories of the
night. He knew only that he had had unpleasant dreams; perhaps he had
wept. The one thing he could recall was a pale face, rising from among
the black veils of unconsciousness, around which all his dreams were
centered. It was not Josephina; the face had the expression of a person
of another world.
But as his mental numbness gradually disappeared, while he was washing
and dressing, and while the servant was helping him on with his
overcoat, he thought, summoning his memories with an effort, that it
might be she. Yes, it was she. Now he remembered that in his dream he
had been conscious of that perfume which had followed him since the day
before, which accompanied him to the Academy, disturbing his reading,
and which had gone with him to the banquet, running between his eyes and
Concha's like a mist, through which he looked at her, without seeing
her.
The coolness of the morning cleared his mind. The wide prospect from the
heights of the Exhibition Hall seemed to blot out instantly the memories
of the night.
A wind from the mountains was blowing on the plateau near the
Hippodrome. As he walked against the wind, he felt a buzz in his ears,
like the distant roar of the sea. In the background, beyond the slopes
with their little red houses and wintry poplars, bare as broomsticks,
the mountains of Guadarrama stood out, luminously clear against the blue
sky, with their snowy crests and their huge peaks which seemed made of
salt.
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