LITMIR.BIZ

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and intelligent. When my mother stroked her head at the same time as my sisters and me, no one could have guessed which one was the orphan there.

      She was nine years old. The abundant hair, still of a light brown colour, flowing loose and twirling about her slender, movable waist; the chatty eyes; the accent with something of the melancholy that our voices did not have; such was the image I carried of her when I left my mother's house: such she was on the morning of that sad day, under the creepers of my mother's windows.

      Chapter VIII

      Early in the evening Emma knocked at my door to come to table. I bathed my face to hide the traces of tears, and changed my dresses to excuse my lateness.

      Mary was not in the dining-room, and I vainly imagined that her occupations had delayed her longer than usual. My father noticing an unoccupied seat, asked for her, and Emma excused her by saying that she had had a headache since that afternoon, and was asleep. I tried not to be impressed; and, making every effort to make the conversation pleasant, spoke with enthusiasm of all the improvements I had found in the estates we had just visited. But it was all to no purpose: my father was more fatigued than I was, and retired early; Emma and my mother got up to put the children to bed, and see how Maria was, for which I thanked them, and was no longer surprised at the same feeling of gratitude.

      Though Emma returned to the dining-room, the conversation did not last long. Philip and Eloise, who had insisted on my taking part in their card-playing, accused my eyes of drowsiness. He had asked my mother's permission in vain to accompany me to the mountain the next day, and had retired dissatisfied.

      Meditating in my room, I thought I guessed the cause of Maria's suffering. I recollected the manner in which I had left the room after my arrival, and how the impression made upon me by her confidential accent had caused me to answer her with the lack of tact peculiar to one who is repressing an emotion. Knowing the origin of her grief, I would have given a thousand lives to obtain a pardon from her; but the doubt aggravated the confusion of my mind. I doubted Mary's love; why, I thought to myself, should my heart strive to believe that she was subjected to this same martyrdom? I considered myself unworthy of possessing so much beauty, so much innocence. I reproached myself for the pride that had blinded me to the point of believing myself the object of his love, being only worthy of his sisterly affection. In my madness I thought with less terror, almost with pleasure, of my next journey.

      Chapter IX

      I got up at dawn the next day. The gleams that outlined the peaks of the central mountain range to the east, gilded in a semicircle above it some light clouds that broke away from each other to move away and disappear. The green pampas and jungles of the valley were seen as if through a bluish glass, and in the midst of them, some white huts, smoke from the freshly burnt mountains rising in a spiral, and sometimes the churns of a river. The mountain range of the West, with its folds and bosoms, resembled cloaks of dark blue velvet suspended from their centres by the hands of genii veiled by the mists. In front of my window, the rose bushes and the foliage of the orchard trees seemed to fear the first breezes that would come to shed the dew that glistened on their leaves and blossoms. It all seemed sad to me. I took the shotgun: I signalled to the affectionate Mayo, who, sitting on his hind legs, was staring at me, his brow furrowed with excessive attention, awaiting the first command; and jumping over the stone fence, I took the mountain path. As I entered, I found it cool and trembling under the caresses of the last auras of the night. The herons were leaving their roosts, their flight forming undulating lines that the sun silvered, like ribbons left to the whim of the wind. Numerous flocks of parrots rose from the thickets to head for the neighbouring cornfields; and the diostedé greeted the day with its sad and monotonous song from the heart of the sierra.

      I descended to the mountainous plain of the river by the same path by which I had done so many times six years before. The thunder of its flow was increasing, and before long I discovered the streams, impetuous as they rushed over the falls, boiling into boiling foam in the falls, crystal clear and smooth in the backwaters, always rolling over a bed of moss-covered boulders, fringed on the banks by iracales, ferns and reeds with yellow stems, silky plumage and purple seed-beds.

      I stopped in the middle of the bridge, formed by the hurricane with a stout cedar, the same where I had once passed. Flowery parasites hung from its slats, and blue and iridescent bells came down in festoons from my feet to sway in the waves. A luxuriant and haughty vegetation vaulted the river at intervals, and through it a few rays of the rising sun penetrated, as through the broken roof of a deserted Indian temple. Mayo howled cowardly on the bank I had just left, and at my urging resolved to pass over the fantastic bridge, taking at once, before me, the path that led to the possession of old José, who was expecting from me that day the payment of his welcome visit.

      After a little steep and dark slope, and after skipping over the dry trees from the last felling of the highlander, I found myself in the little place planted with vegetables, from where I could see the little house in the midst of the green hills, which I had left among seemingly indestructible woods, smoking. The cows, beautiful in their size and colour, bellowed at the corral gate in search of their calves. The domestic fowls were in an uproar, receiving their morning ration; in the palm trees near by, which had been spared by the axe of the husbandmen, the oropendolas swayed noisily in their hanging nests, and in the midst of such a pleasant hubbub, one could sometimes hear the shrill cry of the birdcatcher, who, from his barbecue and armed with a slingshot, shooed away the hungry macaws that fluttered over the cornfield.

      The Antioquian's dogs gave him warning of my arrival with their barking. Mayo, fearful of them, approached me sullenly. José came out to greet me, axe in one hand and hat in the other.

      The little dwelling denoted industriousness, economy and cleanliness: everything was rustic, but comfortably arranged, and everything in its place. The living-room of the little house, perfectly swept, with bamboo benches all round, covered with reed mats and bearskins, some illuminated paper prints representing saints, and pinned with orange thorns to the unbleached walls, had on the right and left the bedroom of Joseph's wife and that of the girls. The kitchen, made of reed and with a roof of leaves of the same plant, was separated from the house by a small vegetable garden where parsley, camomile, pennyroyal and basil mingled their aromas.

      The women seemed more neatly dressed than usual. The girls, Lucia and Transito, wore petticoats of purple sarsen, and very white shirts with lace gowns trimmed with black braid, under which they hid part of their rosaries, and chokers of opal-coloured glass bulbs. The thick, jet-coloured plaits of their hair played on their backs at the slightest movement of their bare, careful, restless feet. They spoke to me with great shyness; and it was their father who, noticing this, encouraged them, saying: "Is not Ephraim the same child, because he comes from school wise and grown up? Then they became more jovial and smiling: they linked us amicably with the memories of childhood games, powerful in the imagination of poets and women. With old age, José's physiognomy had gained a lot: although he did not grow a beard, his face had something biblical about it, like almost all those of the old men of good manners in the country where he was born: abundant grey hair shaded his broad, toasted forehead, and his smiles revealed a calmness of soul. Luisa, his wife, happier than he in the struggle with the years, retained in her dress something of the Antioquian manner, and her constant joviality made it clear that she was content with her lot.

      José led me to the river, and told me of his sowing and hunting, while I plunged into the diaphanous backwater from which the water cascaded in a small waterfall. On our return we found the provocative lunch served at the only table in the house. Corn was everywhere: in the mote soup served in glazed earthenware dishes and in golden arepas scattered on the tablecloth. The only piece of cutlery was crossed over my white plate and bordered with blue.

      Mayo sat at my feet looking attentive, but more humble than usual.

      José was mending a fishing line while his daughters, clever but shameful, served me with care, trying to guess in my eyes what I might be lacking. They had beautified themselves, and from being little girls, they had become official women.

      After gulping down a glass of thick, frothy milk, the dessert of that patriarchal lunch, José and I went out to look around the orchard and the brushwood I was picking. He was amazed at my theoretical knowledge of sowing, and we returned

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