Who was this celestial beauty, and how came Migajas to make her
acquaintance? This is how it happened: Our hero's mercantile
operations extended over a great part of one of the streets opening
into the Puerta del Sol,--a busy thoroughfare lined with beautiful
shops, the show-windows of which are resplendent at night, and
display all the marvels of industry. One of these stores, which is
kept by a German, is always full of exquisite trifles and novelties.
It is the great bazaar of childhood, both juvenile and adult. During
the Carnival it is hung with grotesque masks; in Holy Week it is
filled with figures of saints and pious images. At Christmas and New
Year's it is all Bethlehem mangers and Christmas-trees, laden with
toys and magnificent presents.
Pacorrito's mad passion began when the German filled his show-window
with the most enchanting collection of richly dressed ladies that
Parisian fancy could conceive. Almost all of them were two feet tall.
Their faces were of highly refined wax, and the crimson of fresh
roses could not equal the glow of their chaste cheeks. Their immobile
eyes of blue glass shone with a splendor surpassing that of the
human pupil. Their hair of softest crimped wool could with greater
justice be compared to the rays of the sun than that of most great
ladies; and the strawberries of April, the cherries of May, and the
coral from the deep seas were ugly things compared to their lips.
Their good breeding and deportment were such that they never stirred
from the spot where they were placed. They merely creaked the wooden
joints of their knees, their shoulders, and their elbows, when the
German sat them at the piano or made them raise their eyeglasses to
look out into the street. Otherwise they were no trouble whatever,
and no one had ever heard them say, "This month is mine."
There was one among them,--what a woman! She was the tallest, the
most lithe, the most beautiful, the most sympathetic, the most
elegant,--in a word, the greatest lady of them all. She was no doubt
a person of high degree, judging from her grave, grand manner and
that patronizing air which was so becoming to her.
"Grand woman! She is the paragon!" thought Pacorrito the first time
he saw her, and for a whole hour he stood before the show-window,
rooted to the sidewalk.