The Torrent

Don Andres, her advisor, commented upon the change with a gloating I told you so. What had he always said, when dona Bernarda, in the confiding intimacies of that friendship which amounted almost to a senile, a tranquil, a distantly respectful passion, would complain of Rafael’s contrariness? That it would all pass; that it was a young man’s whim; that youth must have its fling! What was the use? Rafael hadn’t studied to be a monk! Many boys his age, and even older ones, were far worse!… And the old gentleman smiled, for he was thinking of his own easy conquests with the wretched flock of dirty, unkempt peasant girls who wrapped the oranges in the shipping houses of Alcira.