XXX

It must have been eleven. Through with the work, I was leaning my elbows on the windowsill in my room.

Those moments of self-forgetfulness when my thought soared through regions almost unknown to me; when the doves, in the shade of the orange-trees loaded down with their clusters of gold, cooed amorously; when María’s voice, in still sweeter notes, reached my ears⁠—such moments had for me an unspeakable enchantment.

It was not the branches of the rosebushes, from which the waters of the brook bore away light petals to deck themselves in their flight; it was not the majestic flight of the black eagles above the neighboring peaks; it was none of these things my eyes rested upon. It was what I shall never see again; what my spirit, broken by sad realities, looks for no more, or admires only in my dreams: the world, nature, as Adam might have seen it on the first morning.

In the dark and winding path from the hills, I saw Tránsito and her father coming, in fulfillment of their promise to María. I crossed the garden, and went up to the top of the first hill, waiting for them on the bridge over the cascade, visible from the house.

As we were in the open air, the mountaineers were not yet timid with me. I asked Tránsito for Braulio.

“He stayed to take advantage of the good sun for weeding. And how is the Virgin of the Chair?”

Tránsito had been accustomed to ask after María by that name, ever since she had observed the striking likeness between the face of her future bridesmaid and that of a beautiful madonna in my mother’s oratory.

“The live one is well and expecting you,” I replied. “The painted one is supplied with roses and tapers to make you very happy.”

As soon as we drew near the house, María and Emma came out to welcome Tránsito, to whom they said, among other things, that she was grown a very pretty girl; and it was so, for her happiness was beautifying her.

José received the affectionate greetings of the young ladies, hat in hand; throwing down the bag of vegetables he had brought as a present, he went in with us, at my urging, as far as my mother’s room. As he crossed the parlor, Mayo, who was asleep under a table, growled at him, and the mountaineer laughed and said: “Hello, grandfather, do you still dislike me? It must be because I am as old as you.”

“And Lucía?” María asked Tránsito, “why did she not come with you?”

“She is as lazy as never was, and then she is so shy.”

“But Efraín says that she is not so with him,” said Emma.

Tránsito laughed before she replied, “With the Señor she is less ashamed, because he comes there so often that she has got over being afraid.”

We tried to find out when the marriage was to be. José, to relieve his daughter’s embarrassment, replied: “We want it to be a week from today. If the thing is well planned, we will do like this: making a very early start from the house, we can reach the village by sunrise; if you leave here at five, you will overtake us just as we get there; and as the priest will have everything ready, we shall get the business done early. Luisa is an enemy of banquets, and the girls do not dance; so we will spend that Sunday like any other, with the difference that you will make us a visit; and then on Monday, everyone to his work. Don’t you approve of that?” he concluded, addressing me.

“Yes; but is Tránsito to go to the village on foot?”

“What!” exclaimed José.

“How, then?” asked she, astonished.

“On horseback. Aren’t my horses here?”

“But I would rather walk; and that is not all with Lucía⁠—she is afraid of horses.”

“But why is that?” asked Emma.

“In Antioquia only white people ride horses. Is it not so, father?”

“Yes; though those who are not white do so when they are very old.”

“Who ever told you that you are not white?” I asked Tránsito; “and white as few are.”

The girl turned as red as a cherry, as she replied, “What I mean is rich people, the great ladies.”

José, as soon as he had gone to salute my father, said goodbye, promising to come back in the afternoon, though we urged him to stay to dinner with us.

At five, as the family walked out to accompany Tránsito as far as the foot of the mountain, María, who was at my side, said to me, “If you had seen my godchild in the bridal dress I have made for her, and in the bracelets and necklace Emma and mamma gave her, I am sure you would have thought her very pretty.”

“And why didn’t you call me?”

“Because Tránsito didn’t want us to. We must ask mamma what bridesmaids and groomsmen have to say and do in the ceremony.”

“Of course, and then they can tell us the responses which those who are married have to make, if we ever have to make them.”

Neither María’s eyes nor lips made any reply to this allusion to our future happiness; she remained pensive while we walked the short distance up to the foot of the mountain. Braulio was there, waiting for his betrothed, and rose to give us a smiling and respectful greeting.

“We shall be making you go back in the dark,” said Tránsito. The mountaineers took affectionate leave of us.

They had penetrated some distance into the forest, when we heard Braulio’s fine voice singing refrains of Antioquia.

As we were going down the last slope, Juan, whom María was leading, said to me, “María wants me to be brave, and walk alone; she is tired.”

I offered her my arm. We were now but a short distance from the house. The tints which the setting sun had left upon the western sierra were fading away; the moon, rising above the mountains behind us, threw forward upon the faintly illuminated walls flickering shadows of the willows and climbers in the garden.

I watched María’s face, without her knowing it, looking for symptoms of her disease; before an attack of it, always went such a melancholy as that which had suddenly taken possession of her.

“Why are you so sad?” I asked her at last.

“Haven’t I been as I always am?” she said, as if awaking from a light sleep. “But you are sad.”

“It is because I saw you were.”

“How can I please you?”

“Be happy again.”

“Happy! And will you be, too?”

“Yes, yes.”

“Look; now I am as you wish,” she said, smiling. “Is that all you want?”

“That’s all⁠—or, stop, what you promised me and have not given me.”

“What can it be? I really don’t remember.”

“Don’t you? A lock of your hair.”

“And if they see it is gone?”

“Say you did it cutting off a ribbon.”

“Is that it?” she asked, after feeling under her neckerchief, and showing me something dark in her hand.

“Yes; give it to me.”

“If it is only a ribbon?” she inquired, hiding what she had shown me.

“Very well; I will ask no more.”

“Indeed! What was the use of my cutting off my hair? Well, I needed to, to comb it well.”

My arm lightly pressed hers, from which the sleeve of muslin and lace had slipped back; her hand sought mine, little by little; she let me lift it to my lips; and leaning on me as we went up the stairs in the corridor, she said to me, in slow and hushed tones: “Now are you happy. Do not let us be sad any more.”

My father wanted me to read to him after dinner the last number of The Day. When I had finished, he went to his room, and I sought the parlor. Juan came up to me, and leaned his head upon my knees.

“Aren’t you going to sleep tonight?” I asked him, with a caress.

“I want you to put me to sleep.”

“And why not María?”

“I am angry with her.”

“With her? Why, what have you done to her?”

“Well, she does not love me tonight.”

“Tell me why not.”

“I asked her to tell me the story of Caperuza, and she did not want to. I asked her to kiss me, and she paid no attention.”

Juan’s complaints made me fear that María’s sadness had continued.

“And if you have bad dreams tonight,” said I to the child, “she will not get up to stay with you.”

“Then in the morning I will not help her pick flowers for your room, and I will not carry her combs for her to the bath.”

“Don’t say that; she loves you very much. Run and ask her for a kiss and for a story to put you to sleep.”

“No,” he said, getting up, “I will go and bring her here for you to scold her.”

“For me to scold her?”

“I am going to bring her.” Saying this, he went in search of her. Soon he reappeared, pretending to lead her back by force. She was smiling, and asking him, “Where are you taking me?”

“Here,” replied Juan, making her sit down by my side.

I told María of the child’s gossip. She took his head between her hands, and putting her forehead against his, said, “Ah, unkind one! You will have to sleep with him, then.”

Juan began to cry, holding out his little arms for me to take him.

“No, no, my little man,” said she, “it is only a joke of your Mimiya.” And she kissed him.

But the child insisted that I should take him.

“Is this the way you treat me, Juan?” continued María, complainingly. “Very well. He is a big man now. I’ll have them take his bed to his brother’s room tonight. He doesn’t need me any more. I shall be all alone, and shall cry because he does not love me any longer.”

She covered her face with her hands to make him think she was crying. Juan waited a moment; but as she kept on pretending to cry, he slowly slipped down from my knees and went up to her to try to uncover her face. Finding María’s lips smiling, and her eyes loving, he burst out laughing, put his arms about her waist, and laid his head in her lap, saying: “I love you a heap, I love you with all my heart. I won’t be angry or silly any more. Tonight I am going to pray that you may make me some new trousers.”

“Show me the trousers you have on,” I said. Juan stood up on the sofa, between María and me, to make me admire his first trousers.

“How fine!” I exclaimed, embracing him. “If you love me a great deal and are good, I will have them make you a great many pairs; and I will buy you a saddle and leggings and spurs⁠ ⁠…”

“And a little black horse?” he interrupted.

“Yes.”

He gave me a long kiss, and clinging to María’s neck, forced her to receive a similar favor. Then he dropped on his knees, and putting his hands together, said his evening prayer, leaning sleepily against María’s skirt.

I noticed that María’s left hand was playing with something on the boy’s head, while a mischievous smile was flitting about her lips. With a swift glance she showed me the curl she had promised me. I leaned forward to take it, but she drew it back, and said, “And where is mine? Perhaps I ought not to ask it.”

“A lock of my hair?” I asked.

She nodded, adding, “Won’t it go well in the same locket where I have my mother’s?”