For two months she was dazzled and bewildered with color. She
had never before been face to face with this spendthrift Californian
Flora, in her virgin wastefulness, her more than goddess-like
prodigality. The teeming earth seemed to quicken and throb beneath
her feet; the few circuits of a plough around the outlying corral were
enough to call out a jungle growth of giant grain that almost hid the
low walls of the hacienda. In this glorious fecundity of the earth,
in this joyous renewal of life and color, in this opulent youth and
freshness of soil and sky, it alone remained, the dead and sterile Past,
left in the midst of buoyant rejuvenescence and resurrection, like an
empty churchyard skull upturned on the springing turf. Its bronzed adobe
walls mocked the green vine that embraced them, the crumbling dust of
its courtyard remained ungerminating and unfruitful; to the thousand
stirring voices without, its dry lips alone remained mute, unresponsive
and unchanged.
During this time Don Jose had become a frequent visitor at Los Cuervos,
bringing with him at first his niece and sister in a stately precision
of politeness that was not lost on the proud Blue Grass stranger.
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