“Are they for me, too?” asked my father, in a low tone.
“Well, but they are already packed.”
“But I say …”
“I’ll be back in a moment,” she interrupted, getting up. “There are some handkerchiefs missing.”
She went out, but came back immediately.
My father, who was persistent even when he was jesting, said to her again, in the same tone as before, “We will change the tarts for wine.”
She scarcely dared look at him, but seeing that breakfast was ready, she said, rising, “Breakfast is served, Señor.” Then, addressing Emma, “Let us leave the rest for Estefana; she will do it well.”
As I was going into the dining-room, María came out of my mother’s apartments, and I stopped her.
“Now,” I said, “cut off the lock of hair you want.”
“Oh dear, no, I can’t do it.”
“Tell me where, then.”
“Wherever it won’t be seen.”
She gave me her scissors. She had opened the locket which was hanging from her neck; offering it to me empty, she said, “Put it in this.”
“And your mother’s?”
“I shall put that on top, so that yours cannot be seen.”
She did so, saying to me, “You seem to be pleased to go away today.”
“No, no; it is not to offend my father; it is right for me to offer to help him in his work.”
“Of course; that is proper. I, too, will try not to appear sad, so that mamma and Emma will not be displeased with me.”
“Think of me often,” I said to her, kissing her mother’s hair, and the hand with which she was putting it in the locket.
“Ah, often, very often!” she replied, looking at me with that tenderness and innocence which so well knew how to mingle in her eyes.
We separated, so as to enter the dining-room by different doors.
XXXII
The suns of seven days had beaten upon us, and we had worked up to late hours of the nights. On the last, my father was lying on his bed, dictating, while I was writing. The parlor clock struck ten; I repeated the last word of the phrase I had just written; he said nothing; then I turned, thinking that he had not heard me—he was sound asleep. He was a man of tireless energy, but that time the work had been too severe. I lowered the light, closed windows and doors, and waited for him to awake, walking up and down meanwhile in the roomy corridor.
The night was calm and silent. The blue and transparent arch of the heavens glittered with all its summer brilliance. In the dark foliage of the rows of ceibas running from the sides of the house all around the court, and in the branches of the orange-trees below, numberless fireflies were darting; and only at times could one hear the creaking of crossed twigs, the flapping wings of a frightened bird, or the rustling of the wind.
The white portico, which opened into the court, seventy yards from the house, stood out solitary in the dimness of the plain, projecting its turrets against the shapeless mass of the distant Cordilleras, whose peaks were lighted up now and then by flashes from thunderstorms raging on the Pacific.
María, susceptible to the low whisperings, the breathings of that nature, even in her sleep—María, I said to myself, must have fallen asleep with a smile, thinking that tomorrow I shall be again at her side. But afterwards! That afterwards was terrible; it was my journey.
I thought I heard the gallop of a horse across the plain; I supposed it must be the servant whom we had sent to the city four days before, and whom we were impatiently expecting, as he was to bring some important letters.
“Camilo?” I asked.
“Yes, master,” he replied, handing me a package of letters.
The rattling of his spurs awoke my father.
“How is this, my man?” he inquired.
“I left at twelve, my master, and as the mountain-slide reaches as far as Guayabo, I was delayed very much.”
“Very good. Tell Feliciana to give you something to eat, and take good care of that horse.”
My father glanced over the signatures of some of the letters, and finding at last the one he wanted, said to me, “Begin with that one.”
I read out several lines, but on coming to a certain point, stopped involuntarily. He took the letter, and with contracted lips, while his eyes devoured its contents, finished the reading, and flung the paper upon the table, saying:
“That man has killed me! Read that letter. At last, what your mother dreaded has happened.”
I took up the letter to convince myself that what I had guessed was true.
“Read it aloud,” added my father, walking up and down the room, and wiping the sweat from his forehead.
“This is beyond remedy,” he said, as soon as I finished. “What an amount, and in what circumstances! I am the only one to blame.”
I interrupted him to point out a way in which I thought we could make the loss less severe.
“That is true,” he remarked, listening to me with considerable calmness; “that can be done. But who would have suspected it? I shall die without having learned to distrust men.”
He spoke the truth. Many times before in his business he had received similar lessons. One night, when he was alone in the city, an employee of his came to his room—a man whom he had sent to Chocoes to exchange a considerable amount of farm produce for gold, which he needed to send to foreign creditors.
The agent said to him: “I come to get you to pay my mule-hire, and to shoot me. I have gambled and lost all you entrusted to me.”
“All? Have you lost all?” asked my father.
“Yes, Señor.”
“Take from this drawer the money you need.” Calling a servant, he added, “This gentleman has just arrived; tell them inside, so that they may serve his dinner.”
But those were other days. There are strokes of misfortune which one receives in youth with indifference, without uttering a complaint; then
