I could not do that to
please him, never having acquired the art of improvisation--that
idle trick of making words jingle which men of Nuflo's class in
my country so greatly admire; yet it seemed to me on that evening
that my feelings could be adequately expressed only in that
sublimated language used by the finest minds in their inspired
moments; and, accordingly, I fell to reciting. But not from any
modern, nor from the poets of the last century, nor even from the
greater seventeenth century. I kept to the more ancient romances
and ballads, the sweet old verse that, whether glad or sorrowful,
seems always natural and spontaneous as the song of a bird, and
so simple that even a child can understand it.
It was late that night before all the romances I remembered or
cared to recite were exhausted, and not until then did Rima come
out of her shaded corner and steal silently away to her
sleeping-place.
Although I had resolved to go with them, and had set Nuflo's mind
at rest on the point, I was bent on getting the request from
Rima's own lips; and the next morning the opportunity of seeing
her alone presented itself, after old Nuflo had sneaked off with
his dogs.
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