V

After three days had passed, my father asked me to go with him to inspect his ranches in the valley. My mother insisted strongly that we should return soon. María did not ask, as did my sisters, that we should return the same week; but her eyes were continually upon me while we were preparing for the journey.

During my absence at Bogotá my father had made great improvements: a fine and expensive sugar-mill, many acres of cane to supply it, large pastures with droves of cattle and horses in them, good stables, and an excellent house for the overseer were the most notable things about his farms in the tierra caliente. The slaves were well clad, and as happy as it is possible for slaves to be, and were docile and even affectionate towards their master. I found that the boys who, years before, had taught me to set snares for chilacoas and guatines in the thick woods were now men; they and their parents gave unmistakable signs of pleasure at seeing me again. But I was not to meet Pedro, my faithful friend and servant; he had shed tears when he placed me on my horse the day I set out for Bogotá, saying, “Dear little master, I shall never see you again.” His heart told him that he would die before my return.

It was easy to see that my father, without ceasing to be a master, treated his slaves with kindness. He was anxious for their domestic happiness, and fondled the little ones.

One evening, just at sunset, we were coming back with Higinio, the overseer, from the fields to the mill. They were talking about the work to be done; I was occupied with less serious things: I was thinking about the days of my childhood. The peculiar odor of trees just cut down, and of ripe cypress-cones; the clamor of the parrots in the neighboring reeds and among the guava-trees; the distant note of some shepherd’s horn echoing among the mountains; the piping of the slaves as they slowly came from their work with their tools on their shoulders; the red glow in the sky seen beyond the fields of waving cane⁠—all reminded me of the afternoons in which I, with María and my sisters, taking advantage of permission wrung with difficulty from my mother, used to gather guavas from our favorite trees, pluck bunches of cypress-cones, often at cost of many scratches on hands and arms, and spy out the fledgeling parrots in the hedges about the yards.

As we met a group of slaves, my father said to a young negro of remarkably pleasant appearance, “Well, Bruno, your wedding is all arranged for the day after tomorrow?”

“Yes, master,” he replied, taking off his hat made of rushes, and leaning upon the handle of his shovel.

“Who are going to stand up with you?”

“Dolores and Anselmo, if your honor pleases.”

“Very well. You and Remigia must be sure to go to confession first. Have you bought everything which you two need with the money I ordered given you?”

“Everything, master.”

“And you want nothing more?”

“Your honor will see to that.”

“Is it a good cabin Higinio has given you?”

“Yes, master.”

“Ah, now I know what it is. You want a ball!”

Bruno laughed at this, showing his gleaming white teeth, and looking around at his companions.

“That’s right; you conduct yourself well. Now you know what to do,” he added, addressing Higinio, “you attend to this and make them happy.”

“And will your honors go away before the wedding?”

“No,” I answered him, “and we understand we are invited.”

Bruno and Remigia were married the next Saturday morning. That night at seven, my father and I mounted our horses to go to the ball; we could hear the music from afar. When we arrived Julian, the slave captain of the gang, came out to help us dismount and to care for our horses. He was in his Sunday’s best, and there hung from his belt the long knife with silver-plated sheath which was the sign of his office. One large room of the old farmhouse had been cleared of its furniture for a ballroom. They had built a platform around it; in a wooden chandelier hanging from one of the beams a half-dozen candles were swinging; the musicians and singers, a mixture of slaves and freedmen, were stationed at one of the doors. There were only two reed flutes, an improvised drum, two rattles, and a timbrel; yet the fine voices of the negroes struck into the chants with such skill, there was in their songs such an affecting combination of melancholy and light and joyful chords, the verses they sang were so simple and tender, that the most cultivated ear would have listened with the highest pleasure to that half-savage music. We entered the room in leggings and hats. Remigia and Bruno were then dancing. She, with a blue flounced skirt, a girdle red-flowered, a white chemise embroidered with black, and necklace and earrings of ruby-colored glass, was dancing with all the ease and grace to be expected of her lithe figure. Bruno, with his woollen cloak folded about his shoulders, breeches of fine cotton cloth, a starched white shirt, and a new knife in his belt, was footing it with admirable dexterity.

That dance over, the musicians struck up their best tune, for Julian told them it was to be for the master. Remigia, urged on by her husband and by the captain, at last agreed to dance a few moments with my father; but she dared not lift her eyes while she was doing it, and her dancing was rather constrained. At the end of an hour we went away.

My father was pleased with my attentiveness during our visit to the farms; but when I told him that in the future I wished to share his labors, and stay by his side, he informed me, almost sorrowfully, that it was necessary for him to sacrifice his ease for my sake, and that he should keep the promise made to me before of sending me to Europe to study medicine; I should have to begin the journey, he said, at the end of four months at the latest. When he told me this his face wore an expression of unaffected gravity, which was always to be observed in him when he had taken an irrevocable resolution. This happened the afternoon when we were going back to the uplands. It was growing dark, and but for this he must have observed the emotion which his decision caused me. How gladly should I have returned to see María, had not this announcement thrust itself in between my hopes and her!