II

After six years, the last days of a splendid August saw me returning to my native valley. My heart was overflowing with love of home. It was the last day of my journey, and I was enjoying the most charming morning of the autumn. The sky was a pale blue; towards the east, and above the highest peaks, still half veiled, floated little clouds of gold, like the gauze of a dancer’s turban stirred by an amorous breath. In the south hung the mists which had cloaked the mountains during the night. I was crossing plains carpeted with the greenest grass and watered by little brooks, the resorts of droves of cattle which had left their resting-places for a plunge in the pools, or for browsing along paths arched over by trees thick with leaves and blossoms. My eyes turned eagerly to those spots, half hidden to the traveler by clumps of old giant-reeds, where were the houses of good friends of mine. My heart would have been unmoved then by the arias of U⁠⸺’s piano; the perfumes I was drinking in were sweeter than those that clung to her rich garments, and captivating to my soul was the song of the numberless birds.

I was struck dumb by all this beauty, though I thought I had preserved it in my memory, because some verses of mine, admired by my fellow-students, gave faint suggestions of it. When, in a ballroom flooded with lights, echoing with voluptuous music, filled with a thousand mingled perfumes and with the rustling robes of fascinating women, we meet her of whom we dreamed at eighteen, and her glance makes the face flush, her voice hushes all other voices for us, and her flowers leave a nameless fragrance behind them⁠—then we fall into a sort of celestial trance: our voices are powerless, hers we can scarcely hear, our eyes cannot rest upon her. But when, hours after, with our minds calmer, she comes again to the memory, our lips murmur songs in her praise, and it is that woman, her tones, her glance, her gliding over the carpet, we try to recall in the lyric which people think is purely ideal. So the sky, the horizon, the plains, the crests of Cauca, make those speechless who behold them. The great beauties of nature cannot be sung at the same time they are seen; they must return to the soul, made dim by a faulty memory.

Before sunset I had seen my father’s house whitening on the shoulder of the mountain. As I drew near it, I anxiously noted the groups of willows and orange-trees behind which I saw the glancing lights in the rooms. I was breathing, at last, the fragrance one never forgets of the garden he has seen planted. My horses’ hoofs rang upon the pavement of the court. I heard a vague cry; it was the voice of my mother. She caught me in her arms, and drew me to her bosom. A mist gathered before my eyes; it was the work of perfect joy in an innocent nature.

When I tried to recognize in the women I saw about me the sisters whom I had left children, I saw María standing by my side: her eyes were concealed behind their broad, heavily fringed lids. Her face was the one to wear the deepest blush as my arm touched her waist; and her eyes were yet moist when she smiled at my first affectionate word, like those of a child whose tears have been dried by a mother’s caress.