Age and easy living had caused Don Mario de Castano, the sugar merchant, to take on weight. He had, in truth, become so fat that he waddled¹ like a penguin² when he walked; and when he rode, the springs of his French victoria gave up in despair. They glued themselves together, face to face, and Don Mario felt every rut and every rock in the road. Nor was the merchant any less heavy in mind than in body, for he was both very rich and very serious, and nothing is more ponderous³ than a rich, fat man who takes his riches and his fatness seriously. In disposition⁴ Don Mario was practical and unromantic; he boasted that he had never had an illusion, never an interest outside of his business. And yet, on the day this story opens, this prosaic⁵ personage, in spite of his bulging⁶ waistband and his taut⁷ neckband, in spite of his short breath and his prickly heat, was in a very whirl of pleasurable excitement. Don Mario, in fact, suffered the greatest of all illusions: he was in love, and he believed himself beloved. The object of his adoration⁸ was little Rosa Varona, the daughter of his one-time friend Esteban. At thought of her the planter glowed with ardor⁹—at any rate he took it to be ardor, although it might have been the fever from that summer rash which so afflicted¹⁰ him—and his heart fluttered in a way dangerous to one of his apoplectic¹¹ tendencies. To be sure, he had met Rosa only twice since her return from her Yankee school, but twice had been enough; with prompt decision he had resolved to do her the honor of making her his wife.

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