XVIII

Emigdio was a good boy. A year before my return to Cauca his father had sent him to Bogotá, with the purpose of putting him, as the excellent man said, in the way of becoming a merchant and man of affairs. Carlos, who was rooming with me at that time, and who always managed to be fully acquainted even with things that he ought not to know anything about, ran across Emigdio somewhere, and planted him down in front of me one Sunday morning, first coming himself into our room to say to me: “I say, I’m going to kill you with pleasure. I’ve brought you the sweetest thing!”

I ran out and fell into the arms of Emigdio; he had stopped at the door, and cut the most comical figure that could be imagined. It is folly to try to describe it.

My fellow-countryman had come loaded down with a hat made of chocolate-colored skin, a thing that had been the pride of Don Ignacio, his father, in the long-past days of his youth. Whether it was too tight, or whether he thought it the style to wear it so, the hat was at an angle of ninety degrees with the long, sunburnt neck of our friend. His lank figure, his limp and straggling whiskers, mingling with the most inconsolably abandoned hair that ever was seen; his flaming complexion putting the very bricks in the street to shame; his shirt-collar hopelessly hidden behind the lapels of a white vest most fearfully constructed; his arms imprisoned in the sleeves of a blue frock-coat; his trousers made of woollen cloth and stitched with broad bands of Spanish leather, and his shoes of dressed deerskin, were more than enough to arouse Carlos’s enthusiasm.

Emigdio carried a pair of enormous spurs in one hand, and in the other an elaborate letter of introduction to me. I hastened to relieve him of everything, throwing a severe glance at Carlos, who was stretched out on a bed, and stuffing a pillow into his mouth, tears in his eyes⁠—a sight which for a moment upset me disastrously. I offered Emigdio a seat in our little reception-room. He chose an upholstered sofa, and when the poor fellow sat down he thought he was falling through, and thrust out violently to seize something to hold on by. Finally he got up as best he could, and said: “What the deuce! Carlos, here, has no sense. No wonder he was laughing at the trick he was going to play me. And you, too! Why, you people are very rogues. You ought to be ashamed of what you have done.” Carlos came out of the bedroom, taking advantage of such a lucky opportunity to laugh at his ease.

“Why, Emigdio! Sit down in that armchair; there’s no trap in that. You must.”

Emigdio sat down with hesitation, as if he feared some new mishap.

“What did he do to you?” laughed rather than asked Carlos.

“Didn’t you see? I shan’t tell you.”

“But why not?” insisted the implacable Carlos, throwing an arm across his shoulders. “Come, tell us.”

Emigdio took offence at last, and we could scarcely mollify him. A glass of wine and a cigar ratified our truce.

In two days’ time our Telemachus was decently dressed; and although his stylish clothes pinched him, and his new boots made him see stars, he had to submit, stimulated by pride and by Carlos to endure what the latter called his martyrdom.

It was not long before he became firmly persuaded that our landlady’s daughter, a lively and prankish girl, though not very prepossessing, was dying of love for him.

Such was, in fine, the downright country friend whom I was going to visit.

As I rode up to his house I heard him shouting out to me from within the courtyard: “At last, good-for-nothing! I began to think you were never coming. I’ll be there directly.”

He set himself to washing his bloodstained hands in the fountain within the court.

“What have you been doing?” I asked him, after we had exchanged greetings.

“We are butchering today, and as my father went off early, I have been directing the darkies⁠—and it’s a job. But I am free now. My mother has the greatest wish to see you; I’ll go tell her you are here. It is doubtful if we can get the girls to come out; they are growing more untamed every day. Choto!” he called.

In a moment a half-naked negro boy appeared; one of his arms was shriveled and covered with scars.

“Take this horse to the stable, and saddle the sorrel colt for me.” Then, turning to me, after examining my horse, he said “That’s a fine black!”

“How did that boy hurt his arm that way?” I asked.

“Putting cane in the mill. Such stupids, they are! All he can do now is to mind horses.”

Breakfast was served shortly, and I made myself entirely agreeable to Donna Andrea, Emigdio’s mother, in the quarter of an hour we were together.

The truth must be spoken: the breakfast was no great affair; yet it was very well served. While we were eating, I caught a glimpse of one of the girls by peeping through a half-opened door; and her pleasant face, lighted up by great black eyes, made me think that what was hidden ought to harmonize well with what could be seen.

I took my leave of Señora Andrea at eleven; for we had agreed to go out to see Don Ignacio in the pastures, where they were making a roundup, and at the same time to go for a plunge in the Amaime.

Emigdio mounted the colt, first taking the precaution to blind the animal’s eyes with a handkerchief. The big colt bucked savagely, his tail between his legs; but his rider simply cried out, “There you go with your tricks,” and gave him two sounding cuts with his Palmyra whip. Thereupon, after the horse had given two or three wild leaps, which did not so much as move Emigdio in his saddle, I mounted, and we set out.

As we were riding towards the scene of the roundup, about half a league from the house, my companion, when he had taken advantage of the first level spot to turn and rein in his horse, entered into a long conversation with me. He unbosomed himself of all he knew about the matrimonial intentions entertained by Carlos. “And what do you say about it?” asked he, finally.

I contrived to avoid giving a direct reply, and he went on: “Well, it can’t be denied, Carlos is an industrious fellow. As soon as he finds out that he can’t be a farmer till he throws away his gloves and umbrella, he will get on well. He still makes fun of me for using the lasso, making fences, and breaking mules; but he will have to come to it himself yet. Haven’t you seen him?”

“No.”

“Well, you will. Will you believe me, he will not take a bath in the river when the sun is hot, and will not ride a horse without a saddle; all so as not to get sunburnt or dirty his hands. Still he’s a gentleman, that’s a fact; only a week ago he got me out of a scrape by lending me a couple of hundred to buy young bulls with. Of course he knows I’m good for it, but that’s what I call being a friend in need. Now, about his marriage, I’ll tell you something if you won’t be angry.”

“Tell it, man; say whatever you wish.”

“In your family they live in great luxury; and I imagine that a girl brought up in silks and satins, as they say in the stories, would have to be treated in a very particular manner.”

He gave a great laugh, and continued: “I say this because that Don Jerónimo, Carlos’s father, is a terribly rough fellow, and biting as a chili sauce. My father can’t bear the sight of him since they got into a lawsuit over boundary lines, and I don’t know what all. Whenever my father comes home at night from meeting the man, we have to give him fomentations of herbs and brandy slings.”

We had reached the place of the roundup. In the middle of the corral, under the shade of guásimo, through the cloud of dust raised by the moving cattle, I discovered Don Ignacio. He approached to greet me. He was riding a lamentable bay nag, caparisoned with a saddle whose dilapidation bespoke its merits. The slight form of the rich landowner was decked out as follows: jaguar-skin leggings, much worn; silver spurs with jingling rowels; a jacket of coarse sacking, and a very cottony wool cloak; crowning all, an enormous jipijapa hat⁠—as they call it when the wearer is riding at a gallop; under its shade, the tiny nose and little blue eyes of Don Ignacio had the same appearance as the projecting beak, and the bits of glass for pupils, in the head of a stuffed paletón.

I gave him my father’s message about the cattle.

“Very well,” he said. “Our young stock couldn’t be better; they stand up well. Won’t you come in and amuse yourself a minute?”

Emigdio’s eyes could see nothing but the group of vaqueros within the corral.

“Hi there!” he shouted; “be careful with that lariat. Back, back!”

I thanked Don Ignacio, but excused myself. He continued: “Never mind, I understand. In Bogotá they are afraid of the sun or a fierce bull; that’s the reason boys in college there simply waste themselves. If you don’t believe it, just look at that nice boy of Don Chomo’s; at seven of the morning I have met him with his head tied up in a handkerchief so that you see only one eye⁠—and with a sun-umbrella; yet you, it seems, don’t use those articles.”

Just then came a shout from the vaquero who was putting the gleaming brand to the shoulders of the bulls stretched out and hobbled in the corral: “Another, another!” After each shout there was a bellow, and then Don Ignacio would cut a little notch with his knife in the guásimo branch which served him for a whip.

As there was some danger from the animals when let up, Don Ignacio, after bidding me goodbye, withdrew to a safe place in a little adjoining enclosure.

The part of the river chosen by Emigdio was the best place to be found in the whole Amaime for a bath at that time of year, especially at that time of day. Guabos churimos over whose flowers thousands of insects were hovering furnished us dense shade and leafy couches on which to lay our cloaks. On the bottom of the deep pool at our feet we could distinguish the smallest pebble, and silvered sardines playing about. Farther down the stream, upon the rocks sticking out of the water, were blue and white herons watching for fish, or preening their feathers. On the opposite shore cows lay chewing their cud. Macaws, hidden among the leaves of the cachimbos, chattered sleepily; and high up on the topmost branches a troop of monkeys dozed in lazy abandon. On all sides the cicadas were giving their monotonous calls. Here and there a curious squirrel would peer over the edge of the gorge, and then swiftly disappear. From within the forest could be heard from time to time the melancholy trill of the chilacoas.

“Hang your leggings farther off,” said I to Emigdio. “If you don’t, we will come out of the bath with a headache.”

He laughed good-naturedly, and hung them in the crotch of a tree at some distance.

“Must you have everything smell like a rose?” he grinned.

In the course of our bath, whether it be that night or the shore of a beautiful river are two things that predispose to confidences, or whether I contrived to draw them from my friend, he confessed to me that after having cherished for a long time, as a holy relic, the remembrance of Micaelina, our Bogotá landlady’s daughter, he had fallen madly in love with a dear little creature of the neighborhood. This weakness he had sought to hide from Don Ignacio, who would be sure to try to break it all off, as the girl was not a lady. But Emigdio reasoned on this wise: “How could I ever persuade myself to marry a lady, when it would simply result in my becoming her servant instead of her becoming mine? And however much of a gentleman I may be, how the deuce would I get on with a woman of that class? But if you knew Zoila!⁠—I tell you I’m not exaggerating⁠—why, she would almost make you write poetry to her! Poetry, indeed! why, she fairly makes your mouth water! Her eyes are enough to give a blind man sight; her laugh is too cunning; her feet are just lovely, and her waist⁠—”

“Slowly, slowly,” I interrupted; “what you mean is that you are so desperately in love that you will go drown yourself if you can’t marry her.”

“I will marry her or burst.”

“Marry a peasant girl? Without your father’s consent? Well, you know best. You’ve got a beard, and ought to know what you are doing. And does Carlos know about this?”

“Heaven forbid! That would be the end of everything. It’s lucky that Zoila lives in San Pedro and doesn’t come to Buga once in a dog’s age.”

“But you would let me see her?”

“Oh, you are different; I’ll take you any day you choose.”

At three in the afternoon I took my leave of Emigdio, making profuse excuses for not going to dine with him; and it must have been about four when I reached home.