My Cousin Agatha

Mi madrina invitaba a mi prima Águeda a que pasara el día con nosotros, y mi prima llegaba con un contradictorio prestigio de almidón y de temible luto ceremonioso. Águeda aparecía, resonante de almidón, y sus ojos verdes y sus mejillas rubicundas me protegían contra el pavoroso luto... Yo era rapaz y conocía la o por lo redondo, y Águeda que tejía mansa y perseverante en el sonoro corredor, me causaba calosfríos ignotos... (Creo que hasta le debo la costumbre heroicamente insana de hablar solo). A la hora de comer, en la penumbra quieta del refectorio, me iba embelesando un quebradizo sonar intermitente de vajilla y el timbre caricioso de la voz de mi prima. Águeda era (luto, pupilas verdes y mejillas rubicundas) un cesto policromo de manzanas y uvas en el ébano de un armario añoso.

My godmother used to invite my cousin Agatha to spend the day with us, and my cousin would arrive with a contrasting display of starch and fearsome official mourning weeds. Agatha would appear, sonorous in starch, and her green eyes and ruddy cheeks protected me from the terrifying weeds… I was only a lad, I knew the O is the round one, and Agatha, knitting quietly, persistently, in the echoing hall, caused me novel sensations of hot and cold… (I think I even owe her the habit, heroically insane, of talking to myself.) At lunch-time, in the quiet shade of the dining-room, I was bewitched by a clinking intermittent sound of crockery and the caressing tone of my cousin’s voice. Agatha was (weeds, green eyes, and ruddy cheeks) a multi-coloured basket of apples and grapes on the ebony of an antique sideboard.