Maria (GB English)

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 Jose, 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. Jose 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, Jose'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.

Jose 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.

Jose 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, Jose 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 to the house an hour later to say goodbye to the girls and my mother.

I put the good old man's mountain knife, which I had brought him from the kingdom, round his waist; around the necks of Transito and Lucia, precious rosaries, and in Luisa's hands a locket that she had entrusted to my mother. I took the turn of the mountain when it was noon by the edge of the day, according to Jose's examination of the sun.

Chapter X

On my return, which I did slowly, the image of Mary came back to my memory. Those solitudes, its silent forests, its flowers, its birds and its waters, why did they speak to me of her? What was there of Mary in the damp shadows, in the breeze that moved the foliage, in the murmur of the river? It was that I saw Eden, but she was missing; it was that I could not stop loving her, even though she did not love me. And I breathed in the perfume of the bouquet of wild lilies that Joseph's daughters had formed for me, thinking that perhaps they would deserve to be touched by Mary's lips: thus my heroic resolutions of the night had been weakened in so few hours.

As soon as I got home, I went to my mother's sewing room: Maria was with her; my sisters had gone to the bathroom. After answering my greeting, Maria lowered her eyes to her sewing. My mother expressed her delight at my return; they had been startled at home by the delay, and had sent for me at that moment. I talked to her, pondering over Joseph's progress, and Mayo tongued my dresses to get rid of the hips that had got caught in the weeds.

Mary raised her eyes again, and fixed them on the bunch of lilies which I held in my left hand, while I leaned with my right on the shotgun: I thought I understood that she wanted them, but an indefinable fear, a certain respect for my mother and my intentions for the evening, prevented me from offering them to her. But I delighted in imagining how beautiful one of my little lilies would look on her lustrous brown hair. They must have been for her, for she would have gathered orange blossoms and violets in the morning for the vase on my table. When I went into my room I did not see a flower there. If I had found a viper rolled up on the table, I would not have felt the same emotion as the absence of the flowers: its fragrance had become something of Mary's spirit that wandered around me in the hours of study, that swayed in the curtains of my bed during the night.... Ah, so it was true that she did not love me, so my visionary imagination had been able to deceive me so much! And what could I do with the bouquet I had brought for her? If another woman, beautiful and seductive, had been there at that moment, at that moment of resentment against my pride, of resentment against Mary, I would have given it to her on condition that she would show it to all and beautify herself with it. I lifted it to my lips as if to bid farewell for the last time to a cherished illusion, and threw it out of the window.

Chapter XI

I made efforts to be jovial for the rest of the day. At the table I spoke enthusiastically about the beautiful women of Bogota, and intentionally praised P***'s graces and wit. My father was pleased to hear me: Eloisa would have wanted the after-dinner conversation to last into the night. Maria was silent; but it seemed to me that her cheeks sometimes grew pale, and that their primitive colour had not returned to them, like that of the roses which during the night have adorned a feast.

Towards the latter part of the conversation, Mary had pretended to play with the hair of John, my three-year-old brother whom she spoiled. She put up with it to the end; but as soon as I got to my feet, she went with the child into the garden.

All the rest of the afternoon and into the early evening it was necessary to help my father with his desk work.

At eight o'clock, after the women had said their usual prayers, we were called into the dining room. As we sat down to table, I was surprised to see one of the lilies on Mary's head. There was such an air of noble, innocent, sweet resignation in her beautiful face that, as if magnetised by something unknown to me in her until then, I could not help looking at her.

Loving, laughing girl, as pure and seductive a woman as those I had dreamed of, so I knew her; but resigned to my disdain, she was new to me. Divinised by resignation, I felt unworthy to fix a glance on her brow.

I answered wrongly to some questions that were put to me about Joseph and his family. My father could not conceal my embarrassment; and turning to Mary, he said with a smile:

–Beautiful lily in your hair: I have not seen such in the garden.

Maria, trying to conceal her bewilderment, replied in an almost imperceptible voice: