She swam like a fish; he could not swim at all. She
pledged her word to make him equally proficient in a few days, but
her superiority made him feel small, and he would not accept her
offer. For twenty minutes she practiced her art in the water, lay on
her back and on her side, turned somersaults, dived, trod the water
and finally came out, like Venus newly risen from the waves, and
joined Wilhelm, who was waiting for her with her bath-mantle. He
enveloped her in its soft folds, she roguishly shook the drops of
water off her rosy finger-tips into his face and hurried to her
bathing house without a glance for the spectators who had been
watching her graceful play in the water, and devoured her with their
eyes when she came on dry land.
The rest of the day was filled up by long walks broken by delightful
rests under the shade of cornricks on grassy hillslopes beside some
purling brook. Then Pilar would sit on the rug or the camp stool,
while Wilhelm lay at her feet with his head in her lap caressed by
the little hands that played with his hair or wandered softly over
his face, resting fondly on his lips for him to kiss. If there were
flowers within reach, she would pluck a quantity and strew his head
and face with the fresh petals, while he gazed alternately into the
blue summer sky and the bright brown eyes above him, or even closed
his own for quarters of an hour of delicious dreaming.
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