XXXII

The suns of seven days had beaten upon us, and we had worked up to late hours of the nights. On the last, my father was lying on his bed, dictating, while I was writing. The parlor clock struck ten; I repeated the last word of the phrase I had just written; he said nothing; then I turned, thinking that he had not heard me⁠—he was sound asleep. He was a man of tireless energy, but that time the work had been too severe. I lowered the light, closed windows and doors, and waited for him to awake, walking up and down meanwhile in the roomy corridor.

The night was calm and silent. The blue and transparent arch of the heavens glittered with all its summer brilliance. In the dark foliage of the rows of ceibas running from the sides of the house all around the court, and in the branches of the orange-trees below, numberless fireflies were darting; and only at times could one hear the creaking of crossed twigs, the flapping wings of a frightened bird, or the rustling of the wind.

The white portico, which opened into the court, seventy yards from the house, stood out solitary in the dimness of the plain, projecting its turrets against the shapeless mass of the distant Cordilleras, whose peaks were lighted up now and then by flashes from thunderstorms raging on the Pacific.

María, susceptible to the low whisperings, the breathings of that nature, even in her sleep⁠—María, I said to myself, must have fallen asleep with a smile, thinking that tomorrow I shall be again at her side. But afterwards! That afterwards was terrible; it was my journey.

I thought I heard the gallop of a horse across the plain; I supposed it must be the servant whom we had sent to the city four days before, and whom we were impatiently expecting, as he was to bring some important letters.

“Camilo?” I asked.

“Yes, master,” he replied, handing me a package of letters.

The rattling of his spurs awoke my father.

“How is this, my man?” he inquired.

“I left at twelve, my master, and as the mountain-slide reaches as far as Guayabo, I was delayed very much.”

“Very good. Tell Feliciana to give you something to eat, and take good care of that horse.”

My father glanced over the signatures of some of the letters, and finding at last the one he wanted, said to me, “Begin with that one.”

I read out several lines, but on coming to a certain point, stopped involuntarily. He took the letter, and with contracted lips, while his eyes devoured its contents, finished the reading, and flung the paper upon the table, saying:

“That man has killed me! Read that letter. At last, what your mother dreaded has happened.”

I took up the letter to convince myself that what I had guessed was true.

“Read it aloud,” added my father, walking up and down the room, and wiping the sweat from his forehead.

“This is beyond remedy,” he said, as soon as I finished. “What an amount, and in what circumstances! I am the only one to blame.”

I interrupted him to point out a way in which I thought we could make the loss less severe.

“That is true,” he remarked, listening to me with considerable calmness; “that can be done. But who would have suspected it? I shall die without having learned to distrust men.”

He spoke the truth. Many times before in his business he had received similar lessons. One night, when he was alone in the city, an employee of his came to his room⁠—a man whom he had sent to Chocoes to exchange a considerable amount of farm produce for gold, which he needed to send to foreign creditors.

The agent said to him: “I come to get you to pay my mule-hire, and to shoot me. I have gambled and lost all you entrusted to me.”

“All? Have you lost all?” asked my father.

“Yes, Señor.”

“Take from this drawer the money you need.” Calling a servant, he added, “This gentleman has just arrived; tell them inside, so that they may serve his dinner.”

But those were other days. There are strokes of misfortune which one receives in youth with indifference, without uttering a complaint; then one trusts in the future. But those which come upon one in old age seem the work of a cowardly enemy; it is but a short distance to the grave.

Three hours had passed. As my father went to bed he said to me, “We must conceal from your mother, as far as possible, what has happened; and we shall also have to delay our return for another day.”

Although I had always heard him say that his peaceful sleep brought him relief in all the disasters of life, I saw⁠—when, shortly after he had spoken to me, I was convinced that he was asleep⁠—such intrepid resignation in his slumber, such courage in his quiet, that I could only stand and look at him for a long time.

It was not yet dawn when I had to go out in search of better air to calm the sort of fever which had troubled me during that sleepless night. Only the song of the titiribí and the guacharacas of the neighboring woods heralded the morning; nature appeared to be lazily waking from sleep. At the first light of day asomas and azulejos began to flutter about in the banana-trees and in the groves; pairs of doves took up their flight towards neighboring fields; the chattering of flocks of parrots mingled with the noise of a clamorous brook; and from the blossom-laden summits of the cacao-trees, the herons rose in slow and easy flight.

Never again shall I admire those songs, drink in those perfumes, or gaze upon those landscapes flooded with light. Today strangers dwell in my father’s house.

The afternoon was nearly gone when, the next day, my father and I were riding up the long green mountain-slope to our house. The drove of horses that were pasturing near the path gave way to us, snorting in their fright, and the pellares rose from the edges of the streams to threaten us with their cries and circling flight.

We could see the eastern corridor, and the family awaiting us there; and again my father charged me to conceal the cause of our delay, and to try to appear unconcerned.