María

I was still a mere boy when sent away from home to study in ⸻ College, founded a few years before in Bogotá, and then well known all through Colombia. The night before my departure, after the family gathering in the evening, one of my sisters came into my room, and, without saying a single word, because she could not trust her voice, cut off a lock of my hair; when she had gone, I found my neck wet with her tears.

I fell asleep sorrowful, filled with a vague foreboding of coming trouble. That lock of hair taken from a boy’s head; that precaution of love against death, even in the presence of abounding life, caused my thoughts to wander all night about those scenes where I had passed, without knowing it, the happiest hours of my life.

The next morning, my father had to loosen my mother’s arms from my neck. My sisters tried to kiss away my tears. María quietly waited her turn, and stammering out a goodbye, touched her blushing cheek to mine, chilled by the first feeling of sorrow.

A few moments after, I was following my father, who hid his face from my eyes. The tramp of our horses on the pebbly path made my last sobs inaudible. The murmur of the Zabaletas, whose banks lay to our right, grew fainter and fainter. We were already rounding one of those hills in the path on which expected guests used to be looked for from the house; I threw a last glance backward: María was behind the creeper that climbed up by the windows of my mother’s room.

She began to murmur some excuse, when my hand accidentally touched hers, and I seized it and held it involuntarily. She stopped speaking. Her eyes had a frightened look, and turned away from mine. She put her free hand to her forehead, as if in pain, and leaned her head upon it, burying her bare arm in the sofa-pillow. At last she made an effort, and stood up; and then, as if finishing what she had begun, she said, though in so low a tone that I could scarcely hear her, “Then⁠ ⁠… I⁠ ⁠… I will pick the most beautiful flowers every day.”

Then she disappeared.

Souls like María’s are not ignorant of the common language of love; but they bow tremblingly at the first caress of the one they love, as the wood-poppy does under the wing of the wind.

I had confessed my love to María; she had encouraged me to confess it, humbling herself like a slave to pick up those flowers. I repeated to myself with delight her last words; her voice was still whispering in my ear, “Then I will pick the most beautiful flowers every day.”

When I went out into the corridor leading to my room a strong north wind was swaying the willows in the courtyard; and I could hear it sweeping through the orange groves in the garden, blowing the frightened birds from the trees. Fitful flashes of lightning, like the momentary reflection on a shield of a flame leaping up in the fireplace, seemed to be trying to light up the gloomy depths of the valley.

Leaning against one of the pillars of the corridor, heeding not the rain which beat into my face, I stood thinking of María’s sickness, and of the dreadful words of my father. How I longed to see her again, as in those silent and calm nights which perhaps would never return!

I do not know how long I had been there, when something like a flapping wing brushed my forehead. I looked towards the neighboring trees, to follow its flight; the bird was black.

My room was cold. The roses at the window trembled as before a winter wind. In the vase, the irises which María had put there in the morning were already dry and shriveled. A gust of wind put out my lamp. Thunder began to roll in louder and louder rumbles through the rocky ridges of the mountains. Yet my soul maintained a sad composure.

It had just struck twelve on the parlor clock. I heard steps near my door, and then my father’s voice calling me.

“Get up,” he said, as soon as I answered; “María is worse again.”

“We’ll see today,” said he, smiling mischievously; “we’ll see who’ll be afraid. And the black is just raging.”

María was as bewitching as my eyes must have told her she was. Upon her thick and shining braids rested a graceful black velvet hat, trimmed and tied under her chin with Scotch ribbon; on its brim, half hidden by her blue veil, was a rose still dewy. With one hand she held up the skirt of her black dress. Her blue belt was fastened with a diamond clasp. A deep cape hung from her shoulders.

“Which horse do you want to ride?” I asked her.

“The black.”

“But you can’t do that,” I replied, in surprise.

“Why not? Are you afraid he will throw me?”

“Of course I am.”

“I have ridden him before. Don’t you think I can do it again? Ask Emma if I am not more skillful than she. You will see how gentle the black will be with me.”

“Why, he won’t let you touch him. It is so long since you rode him that your skirt may frighten him.”

“I promise not to even show him the whip.”

Felipe, already mounted on his little chestnut, Chibo, was pricking him with his new spurs, and riding about the courtyard. My mother, too, was ready to set out. I placed her on her favorite bay, the only one, according to her, that was not a wild animal. I was very uneasy as I helped María mount the black.

One afternoon⁠—beautiful afternoon which will always live in my memory!⁠—the light of the fading glow of sunset, under a lilac-colored sky, was mingling with the rays of the rising moon⁠—rays which were whitened like lamplight falling on an alabaster globe. The winds came frolicking down the mountains to the plains. The birds hurriedly sought their nests in the grove. María was walking about the garden with me, clasping my arm with both hands; her curls, tossed by the breeze, more than once brushed my forehead. Her cheek was on my shoulder. We were silent. Suddenly she stopped at the end of a border of rosebushes. She looked towards the window of my room. Then she turned her eyes to me and said: “It was here. I wore this very dress. Do you remember?”

“Always, María, always!” I replied, covering her hands with kisses.

“Just think! That night I awoke trembling, because I dreamed that you were doing⁠—what you are doing now. Do you see this rosebush just planted? If you forget me it will not blossom; but if you continue as you are, it will bear the most beautiful roses. I have promised them to the Virgin, and she will make me know if you are always good.”

I smiled, touched by such simplicity.

“Don’t you think it will be so?” she asked, gravely.

“I think that the Virgin will not need so many roses.”

She led me up to my window. Once there, she disengaged her arm, went to the brook, a few steps away, knotting her scarf in her belt. Then she brought some water in the hollow of her two hands, and kneeled down to let it trickle over a sprouting bulb.

“It is a mountain lily,” she said.