“Hang your leggings farther off,” said I to Emigdio. “If you don’t, we will come out of the bath with a headache.”
He laughed good-naturedly, and hung them in the crotch of a tree at some distance.
“Must you have everything smell like a rose?” he grinned.
In the course of our bath, whether it be that night or the shore of a beautiful river are two things that predispose to confidences, or whether I contrived to draw them from my friend, he confessed to me that after having cherished for a long time, as a holy relic, the remembrance of Micaelina, our Bogotá landlady’s daughter, he had fallen madly in love with a dear little creature of the neighborhood. This weakness he had sought to hide from Don Ignacio, who would be sure to try to break it all off, as the girl was not a lady. But Emigdio reasoned on this wise: “How could I ever persuade myself to marry a lady, when it would simply result in my becoming her servant instead of her becoming mine? And however much of a gentleman I may be, how the deuce would I get on with a woman of that class? But if you knew Zoila!—I tell you I’m not exaggerating—why, she would almost make you write poetry to her! Poetry, indeed! why, she fairly makes your mouth water! Her eyes are enough to give a blind man sight; her laugh is too cunning; her feet are just lovely, and her waist—”
“Slowly, slowly,” I interrupted; “what you mean is that you are so desperately in love that you will go drown yourself if you can’t marry her.”
“I will marry her or burst.”
“Marry a peasant girl? Without your father’s consent? Well, you know best. You’ve got a beard, and ought to know what you are doing. And does Carlos know about this?”
“Heaven forbid! That would be the end of everything. It’s lucky that Zoila lives in San Pedro and doesn’t come to Buga once in a dog’s age.”
“But you would let me see her?”
“Oh, you are different; I’ll take you any day you choose.”
At three in the afternoon I took my leave of Emigdio, making profuse excuses for not going to dine with him; and it must have been about four when I reached home.
XIX
My mother and Emma came out to the corridor to welcome me. My father had mounted his horse and gone to oversee the farm-work.
Very soon they called me to the dining-room, and I promptly went there because I thought I should meet María; but I was disappointed. When I asked my mother for her, she said, “As those people are coming tomorrow, the girls are very anxious to have some fine dishes ready; but I think that they must have finished by this time, and that they will soon be here.”
Just as I was rising from the table, José, who was going up the mountain, driving two mules loaded with cane, paused at a point from which he could see into the house, and called to me:
“Good afternoon! I can’t stop, because I have a big load and night is coming on. I’ve left a little present for you with the children. Get up early tomorrow, for it will be a sure thing.”
“Very well,” I replied, “I will start very early. My regards to all.”
“Don’t forget the buckshot.”
He waved his hat to me, and passed on.
I went to my room to get my rifle ready; not that it really needed cleaning, but I wanted a pretext for leaving the dining-room, since María was not to be found there. I had opened and held in my hand a little box of cartridges, when I saw María coming, bringing me my coffee, which she was stirring with a spoon. My cartridges fell all over the floor as soon as she drew near. Without looking at me, she said, “Good afternoon,” and put down the cup with a rather unsteady hand; then for an instant she let her timid eyes rest upon mine; she smiled, and dropping to her knees, began to pick up the cartridges.
“Don’t you do that,” said I; “I will do it afterwards.”
“I have good sharp eyes,” she replied, “to find little things like these. Where is the box?”
She reached out her hand to take it, and exclaimed, as she saw it, “What! every one dropped!”
“It wasn’t full,” I said, beginning to help her.
“And what do you want of these tomorrow?” she asked, blowing the dust off some of the cartridges which she held in one of her pink hands.
“What do you know about tomorrow and about these things?”
“Well, I know that this hunting is dangerous, and I imagine that it is a dreadful thing to miss a shot, and, besides, I know by the box that these are the cartridges which the doctor gave you, and said that they were English, and very good ones.”
“You hear everything.”
“Sometimes I would have given a good deal not to hear. Perhaps you had better give up this hunt—José left a present with us for you.”
“Do you wish me not to go?”
“How could I ask that?”
“Why not?”
She looked at me, but did not reply.
“I think that must be all,” said she, rising to her feet, and looking around the floor. “I must go now. Your coffee will be cold.”
“You taste it.”
“But don’t stop to load your rifle now. It’s good,” she added, handing me the cup.
“Well, I’ll leave the rifle now, and
