3

That supposed medicine. – Some said.

- A tonic that he sold in the streets and tried to sell in pharmacies. - In which he said, and she sadly spoke. – Especially this boy who needs so much strength and will.

As for my father, who shrugged his shoulders and examined the barometer, as he liked meteorology, while my mother, avoiding making any noise so as not to disturb him, looked at him with affectionate respect, but not fixedly so as not to imply that she was trying to delve into the mystery of its superiority.

Knowing about my grandmother, whatever the weather, even when the rain was falling hard and Laurent rushed in, picking up the precious wicker armchairs so they wouldn't get wet, I was seen in the empty, downpour-beaten garden, lifting the grey locks and disorderly so that his forehead could better soak in the salubrious of wind and rain.

When he said. - Finally, air to breathe.

In which he walked the sodden paths of the garden, too symmetrically lined up for his liking, by the new gardener who had no feeling for nature and who my father had asked early in the morning if the weather would settle down - with his brisk, enthusiastic step.

Being that he was regulated by the different impulses that excited in his soul the intoxication of the storm, the power of hygiene, the stupidity of my education and the symmetry of the gardens, more than by the desire, which he did not know, all this to avoid the mud stains in the plum-coloured skirt and which covered her to a height that always caused the despair and trouble of her chambermaid.

When my grandmother's walks in the garden took place after dinner, one thing had the power to make her come back soon.

Even if it was one of those moments when the turns of her walk periodically took her, like an insect, in the direction of the lights in the parlour, where the liqueurs were served on the card table.

I went to see the situation, where at that time, when my great-aunt was screaming at him.

- Mathilda! come and see if you stop your husband from drinking brandy!

“How would anyone give brandy to a baby?”

To annoy her, in fact (she had brought to my father's family such a diverse spirit that everyone mocked and tormented her), since liquors were forbidden to my grandfather, my great-aunt made him drink a few drops.

That problematic woman of my grandmother who came in at that hour, when she was ardently begging her husband not to drink brandy, even at that hour, when everyone saw her more grumpy, she got angry, drank her mouthful in spite of everything, and my Grandmother would leave again, sad, discouraged, yet smiling, for her heart was so humble.

Since she was so sweet that her tenderness for others and the little importance she attributed to herself and her sufferings were reconciled in her gaze with a smile where, contrary to what you see on the faces of many people, she was only ironic with herself. , and it was for all of us like a kiss from his eyes.

At that time, when everything could go wrong, when they couldn't see the ones, she loved without caressing them passionately with their eyes.

It would be some pain or anguish that gripped my great-aunt, the spectacle of my grandmother's vain pleas and her frankness, defeated in advance, trying in vain to take the glass of liqueur from my grandfather.

It was what the habit of drinking early in the morning seemed like, the home of these alcoholics, in which of those things whose sight one later gets used to even laughingly considering and taking the side of the persecutor, resolutely and cheerfully, to persuade himself that he did not it comes to persecution; on occasion, being caused a sense of horror that made me want to hit my great-aunt.

Even when he heard the clamour, calling for Mathilda.

Why is she coming to see if you stop your husband from drinking brandy!” Growing up because of cowardice, I did what we all do when we are grown up and there are sufferings and injustices in front of us: I didn't want to see them; went up to sob at the top of the house.

It was in one of these rooms next to the study hall, under the roofs, a small room that smelled of iris, also scented by a wild gooseberry that grew outside between the stones of the wall and a flowering branch passed through the half-open window.

Knowing that even though it was intended for a more special and more vulgar use, this piece, from which, during the day, one could see all the way to the turret of Mouthbathen -Green-Valley- Deltora, this place served for a long time as a refuge for me.

Even if, without a doubt, because I was the only one who allowed me to lock myself away, for all my occupations that required inviolable solitude, even though I am an affected rich man, I still value reading, daydreaming, tears and voluptuousness, even with your lost time in which unfortunately, I did not know then that, much more sadly than the small infractions of her husband's regime.

Even if I had no interest, with my laziness, less than my health, which at that time was not as delicate as it is now, in what they projected onto my future that my grandmother worried during the course of incessant wanderings, in the afternoon and at night, when you saw it pass and pass, obliquely raised against the sky.

Even though her pale, almost gaunt and rustic appearance, which, with the passage of time, had become almost mauve like the crops in autumn, and which she covered, when going out, with a small veil partially raised, and in the which, brought on by the cold or some sad thought, were always drying up involuntary tears.

When I went upstairs to bed, my only consolation was that Mama would kiss me when I was already in bed, knowing that, that it would last so little, and she would come downstairs so quickly, that the moment I heard her come up, and then when she As she walked along the corridor with double doors, the slight rustle of her garden dress, made of blue muslin, with little straps of braided straw, was a painful moment.

Even if everyone at that time had announced what was going to happen next, when she would have left me, when she would go back downstairs, and that was how those good nights that I loved so much, I ended up wanting them to come as late as possible. , to prolong the waiting time in which Mama still hadn't arrived, it didn't matter that sometimes, when, after having kissed me, she opened the door to leave, I wanted to, but even so, he was there to call -there.

The woman, in turn, said.

- Shut up and kiss me.

She didn't need it more than once.

Precisely, he knew that she would soon appear angry, because she would not leave a moment of peace, in which she did to my sadness and my agitation when she came up to kiss me, taking me that kiss of peace, irritated my father.

Even if I thought that ritual was absurd, even so, it was something else, since she didn't put her hands to her decisions, even though she said so much effort in making me break that habit, she was far from letting me acquire the habit of asking her for a kiss again when I was at the door.

Even if she was very irritated, thus destroying all the peace that she had brought me a moment before, when she had bent her loving face over my bed, offering it like a host for a communion of peace, in which my lips would taste her real presence and the power to fall asleep.

Even if he was spending those nights with his mother's company, but anyway, if he stayed so little time in my room, intrusive in the way they were yet mild compared to those where there were dinner guests, and in which , because of that, she wouldn't come up to say goodnight to me.

For the most part, every visit he received was limited to Mr. Visnsmoken , who, apart from occasional strangers, was almost the only person who regularly came to our house in Conan Doyle County, sometimes to dine as a neighbours (more rarely since he had made a bad marriage, as my parents would not have his wife) , sometimes after dinner, without being expected.

Following those nights when, sitting in front of the house under the big chestnut tree, around the iron table, we heard at the garden gate not the confused and strident noise of the bell, which deafened, with its rusty, inextinguishable and cold noise, the whole person in the house who triggered it when entering even without ringing, due to the switch, there is a double alarm, with that shy, oval and golden ring of the bell for strangers, everyone would immediately ask:

Even if it was one of his visits, with all of them in his residence, wondering who it could be?

He wondered, even if he had the doubt, as to his time when he would have a theory, sometimes thinking he might know who it was.

Those meddling, self-interested people, it wasn't quite right that it could only be Mr. Visnsmoken ; my great-aunt, speaking aloud to set an example, in a tone she tried hard to make natural, told them not to whisper like that; that nothing is more impolite to the arrival than you can imagine.

Being something in which everyone said how could the same person who would have the habit of having a frequent visit, which were almost every day, in which these things should not be heard; and they sent my grandmother ahead, to clear up what was happening, always happy to have one by one.

With his doubts and excuses, which he used to always go out, go for a walk, avoid the same visits, he soon wanted to live in a high luxury apartment chain, even though it was more than fair for him to avoid those inconvenient visits, of his relatives, which would be more for the garden and which he took advantage of secretly pulling out, as he passed, some cuttings from rose bushes, in order to give the roses a more natural look, like a mother who curls her son's hair because the barber it would be very smooth.