You see, do you not, this first meeting was insignificant, almost vague. She had interested and amused me for a little while. That was really all. Soon I ceased to think of her at all. CHAPTER V The following summer I found her again. In August, I was alone in my house, a house that a feminine presence had filled for years. One afternoon, bored to death, I visited the Government Tobacco Manufactory of Seville. It was a sweltering day. I entered alone, which was a favour, in this immense harem of about five thousand women-workers, of a rather free-and-easy type. I have said the day was terribly hot? Most of the workers were half-dressed only. It was a mixed spectacle, certainly: a sort of panorama of women at all ages. I passed along, sometimes being asked for a gift, sometimes being given a cynical pleasantry. Suddenly I recognized Concha, and asked her what brought her into that place. “Heaven knows, I have forgotten.” “But your convent training?” “When girls go there through the door, they leave through the window.” “Did you?” “I will be honest with you. I didn’t enter at all for fear of sinning. Give me a coin, and I will sing you something while the superintendent is away from here.” Then she told me she lived with her mother, and came to the factory when in the mood. I gave her a napoléon, and then left. In the youth of happy men there is a moment, an instant, that chance decides. My moment came when I dropped that golden coin before that girl. It was as if I had thrown a fatal die. I date from then and there my actual life, “the life I have lived the most.” My moral ruin was then begun. You shall know all; the actual story is simple enough, truly. I left the State Factory, and walked slowly into the shadowless street. There she rejoined me, and said-- “I thank you; sir.” I noted that her voice had changed. The golden gift had evoked in her the emotion that comes with the desire for wealth. She asked me to conduct her home to the Calle Manteros, quite near. She told me she had no sweetheart, and I then replied-- “Surely, not through piety?” “I am pious, but I haven’t taken any vows.” Finally she said that she was virginal, and had kept herself pure. CHAPTER VI She admitted this with such a directness, such an air, that I quite flushed and felt ill at ease. Whatever was passing in that childish-looking head, behind that face so provoking, so rebellious? What signified her decided moral attitude, her frank and, possibly, honest eye, her sensuous mouth that seemed to tempt and yet defy. All that I really knew was that she pleased me vastly, that I was enchanted to have found her again, and looked forward to finding other chances of being with her. We reached her home. Down-stairs at the doorway I bought her some mandarines. At the top floor she gave three little knocks at a door and I stood before her mother, a dark woman, who had once been beautiful.