My father walked back and forth in the room. I supposed the interview was over, and rose to go out; but he seated himself again, and, waving me to my chair, began: “Four days ago I received a letter from Señor M⸺, asking María’s hand for his son, Carlos.”
I could not conceal my surprise. My father smiled slightly, and resumed, “Señor M⸺ gives me two weeks in which to accept his proposal, or not, and in the course of that time is coming to pay us a promised visit. There will be no annoyance for you in that, after what we have agreed upon. So, good night,” added he, affectionately laying his hand upon my shoulder; “I hope you’ll have a fine time hunting. I need a bearskin for a rug at the foot of my bed.”
“You shall have it,” said I.
My mother took my hand, and holding it a moment, said, “We shall look for you back early. Be careful, won’t you?”
I had been agitated by so many emotions in the course of the last few hours that I could not remember them all, and found it impossible to grasp my strange and difficult situation. María threatened with death; promised to me, yet after a terrible absence; promised, on condition that I should love her less! I, forced to moderate my affection for her, under pain of seeing her beauty disappear from the earth, and having to appear thereafter, in her eyes, cold and thankless, all because reason and necessity compelled me to! Mine or death’s; between me and death; one step nearer to her, to lose her!
As I had ordered, Juan Ángel knocked at my door the next morning at daybreak.
“What sort of weather is it?” I asked.
“Bad, master; it’s going to rain.”
“Very well. Go up to the mountain, and tell José not to look for me today.”
When I opened the window I was sorry I had sent the boy; whistling and singing, he was just disappearing in the edge of the forest.
A cold and unseasonable wind was beating down from the mountains, stripping off the roses, and twisting the willows; in its course it was sweeping along, here and there, a pair of migratory parrots. All the birds that were the pride of the garden on pleasant mornings were silent, and only the pellares were whirling about in the neighboring fields, saluting the sad winter’s day with their cries.
In a short time the mountains were hidden behind the gray veil of a heavy rain, whose swelling rush could be heard as it came on whipping the forests. In a half-hour, muddy and noisy streams were combing the coarse grass on the farther side of the river; the latter, steadily rising, thundered angrily, and poured its turbid floods over the distant rapids in waves that broke over the banks.
XVI
Ten days had passed since that painful interview; not trusting myself to adopt the bearing with María which my father desired, and sorrowfully reflecting on the proposal of marriage made for Carlos, I had embraced all sorts of pretexts for keeping away from the house. I passed those days either shut up in my room or in company with José—oftenest tramping aimlessly about outdoors. I usually carried a book, which I never read; my rifle, which I never fired; and took Mayo along, who tired himself out following me.
One morning, my mother came into my room, and seating herself at the head of my bed, from which I had not yet risen, said to me: “Things cannot go on this way. You must not keep on like this. I cannot bear it.”
I kept silence, and she continued: “What you are doing is not what your father requested; it is much more. Your conduct is unfeeling towards us, and even more unfeeling towards María. I thought that the reason you went so often towards Luisa’s house was the affection they all have for you there; but Braulio came yesterday, and said you had not been there for five days. What is it that makes you so unhappy, and drives you off so constantly into solitude, as if you could not endure being with us any more?”
Her eyes filled with tears.
“Señora,” I replied, “María ought to be completely free to accept the good-fortune which Carlos offers her; and I, as his friend, ought not to destroy the hopes of being accepted which he may with so much reason cherish.”
“How can you imagine such a thing?” asked my mother, in surprise. “She can scarcely have seen your friend more than once or twice.”
“But, my dear mother, there is only a little time now to wait for what I have thought to be either confirmed or disproved. I think it is well worth the pain of waiting.”
“You are very unfair, and-you will repent it. María, in her self-respect and sense of duty, is concealing the great suffering your conduct is causing her; she can control herself better than you. I can scarcely believe my eyes; I am amazed at what you have said. And all the while I was thinking I should give you the greatest happiness, and make all right again, by telling you what Mayn said to us when he went away yesterday.”
“What was it? Do tell me,” said I, beseeching her.
“Why should I, after what you have said?”
“Will she not always be my sister?”
“It’s too late for you to think that. Oh, I wouldn’t have supposed you could act as you do! No, a son of mine ought not to do that. Your sister! And you forget that you are talking to one who knows you better than you know yourself. Your sister!—when I know that she has
