There were vineyards and
wheat-fields in that vast prospect, and certainly there were towns and
villages; but what remains with me is the sense of olives and ever more
olives, though this may be the cumulative effect of other such prospects
as vast and as monotonous.
While we looked away and away, the gardener and a half-grown boy were
about their labors that Sunday afternoon as if it were a week-day,
though for that reason perhaps they were not working very hard. They
seemed mostly to be sweeping up the fallen leaves from the paths, and
where the leaves had not fallen from the horse-chestnuts the boy was
assisting nature by climbing the trees and plucking them. We tried to
find out why he was doing this, but to this day I do not know why he was
doing it, and I must be content to contribute the bare fact to the
science of arboriculture. Possibly it was in the interest of neatness,
and was a precaution against letting the leaves drop and litter the
grass. There was apparently a passion for neatness throughout, which in
the villa itself mounted to ecstasy. It was in a state to be come and
lived in at any moment, though I believe it was occupied only in the
late spring and the early autumn; in winter the noble family went to
Madrid, and in summer to some northern watering-place.
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