During the long winter evenings Febrer, shut up in his tower, sat gazing at a little light shining forth in the valley below--the light of Can Mallorquí. On the nights not devoted to the courting, the family would be alone, gathered around the fireplace, but, in spite of this, he remained fixed in his isolation. No, he would not go down. In his chagrin he even complained of the bad weather, as if he would make the winter cold responsible for this change which had gradually taken place in his relations with the peasant family.
He wistfully recalled those beautiful summer nights when they used to sit until the small hours watching the stars tremble in the dark sky beyond the black border of the portico. Febrer used to sit beneath the pergola with the family and Uncle Ventolera who came, drawn by the hope of some gift. They never let him go away without a slice of watermelon, which filled the old man's mouth with its sweet red juice, or a glass of perfumed figola, brewed from fragrant mountain herbs. Margalida, her eyes fixed on the mystery of the stars, would sing Ivizan romances in her girlish voice, more fresh and soft to the ear of Febrer than the breeze which filled the blue tumult of the night with rustling. Pèp would tell, with the air of a prodigious explorer, of his stupendous adventures on the mainland during the years when he had served the king as a soldier, in the remote and almost fantastic lands of Catalonia and Valencia.
The dog, lying at his feet, seemed to be listening to his master with mild, gentle eyes, in the depths of which a star was reflected. Suddenly he would spring up with nervous impulse, and giving a leap, would disappear in the darkness, accompanied by the sonorous murmur of crashing vegetation. Pèp would explain this stealthy flight. It was nothing more than some animal wandering in the darkness; a jack rabbit, a cotton-tail, which the beast had scented with the delicate nose of the hunting dog. Again he would rise to his feet slowly with growls of vigilant hostility. Somebody was passing near the farmhouse; a shadow, a man walking quickly, with the celerity of the Ivizans, accustomed to going rapidly from one side of the island to the other. If the shade spoke, they all answered his greeting. If he passed in silence they pretended not to see him, just as the dark traveler seemed to be unconscious of the existence of the farmhouse and of the persons seated under the pergola.