Her flabby flesh was hanging from her skeleton like the ragged fringe of past splendor; her head was small; her face had the wrinkled surface of a winter apple or plum, or of all the fruits that shrink and wither when they lose their juices.
"Dona Pepa!..." The two old people were thee-ing and thou-ing each other with the tranquil non-morality of those that realize that they are very near to death, and forget the tremors and scruples of a life crumbling behind them.
The sailor shrewdly suspected that all this physical misery was the sad finale of an absurd, happy-go-lucky and childish dietary,--sweets serving as the basis of nutrition, great heavy rice dishes as a daily course, watermelons and cantaloupes filling in the space between meals, topped with ices served in enormous glasses and sending out a perfume of honeyed snow.
The two told him, sighing, of their infirmities, which they thought incomprehensible, attributing them to the ignorance of the doctors.

It was really the morbid wasting away that suddenly attacks people of the abundant, food-yielding countries.

Their life was one continual stream of liquid sugar....

And yet Ferragut could easily guess the disobedience of the two old folks to the discipline of diet, their childish deceptions, their cunning in order to enjoy alone the fruits and syrups which were the enchantment of their existence.
The interview was a short one.

The captain had to return to the port of Grao where his steamer was awaiting him, ready to weigh anchor for South America.
The poet wept again, kissing his god-son.