heart that loves her a pure picture, a sacred remembrance, unspotted
by the base passions engendered by the years! Go, we shall remember
you! In the clear air of our native land, under its azure sky, above
the billows of the lake set amid sapphire hills and emerald shores,
in the crystal streams shaded by the bamboos, bordered by flowers,
enlivened by the beetles and butterflies with their uncertain and
wavering flight as though playing with the air, in the silence of
our forests, in the singing of our rivers, in the diamond showers of
our waterfalls, in the resplendent light of our moon, in the sighs of
the night breeze, in all that may call up the vision of the beloved,
we must eternally see you as we dreamed of you, fair, beautiful,
radiant with hope, pure as the light, yet still sad and melancholy
in the contemplation of our woes!





CHAPTER XXIV

DREAMS


Amor, qué astro eres?


On the following day, Thursday, at the hour of sunset, Isagani
was walking along the beautiful promenade of Maria Cristina in the
direction of the Malecon to keep an appointment which Paulita had that
morning given him. The young man had no doubt that they were to talk