“That was wrong in Braulio, wasn’t it? Still, if he had not done it, the stag would not be alive now. You have not seen how glad he is when I go near him. Even Mayo has come to like him, and they often sleep together. He is so handsome! How his mother must have sorrowed for him!”
“You had better let him go, then.”
“Is she still looking for him through the mountains?”
“Perhaps not.”
“Why do you think so?”
“Because Braulio told me that the doe he killed, a little afterwards, in the same ravine from which the young one came out, was no doubt the mother.”
“Alas! what a man! Don’t you ever kill a doe again.”
We had reached the corridor. Juan ran out to meet María with open arms. She lifted him up, and disappeared with him. His sleepy head leaned on her flushed shoulder, which sometimes not even her scarf or hair ventured to hide.
XL
I came down the mountain the next day at noon. Directly overhead was the sun, unshaded by a single cloud, and pouring its intense light on everything not sheltered from its fiery rays by the foliage of the trees. The groves were silent; there was not a breath of air to stir the leaves or start a bird. The tireless cicadas delighted in the summer’s day given them in December. The valley and its surrounding mountains seemed to be lit up by the reflection of a gigantic mirror.
Juan Ángel and Mayo were with me. I perceived María going to the bath with Juan and Estefana. The dog ran towards them, leaping about the pretty group, barking and whining in his joy. María looked around for me eagerly, and at last saw me just as I leaped the garden wall. I went towards her. She was seated under the branches of the orange-tree by the bath, upon a rug which Estefana had spread out.
“What heat!” she said. “You should have come back earlier.”
“It was not possible.”
“It almost never is. Would you like to bathe? I will wait.”
“Oh no.”
Juan, who had been shaking the clusters of oranges that were hanging within his reach and almost down to the ground, now kneeled in front of María to have her unbutton his blouse.
I brought that day a large supply of irises, since, besides those Tránsito and Lucía gave me, I found many on the way. I chose the finest ones for María, and threw all the others into the bath. She cried out: “Oh, what a pity! They are so pretty!”
“The Undines,” I said, “do the same thing with them when they bathe in the river.”
“Who are the Undines?”
“Some women who would like to resemble you.”
“Resemble me? Where have you seen them?”
“In the river.”
María laughed, and, as if to dismiss me, said, “I shall be only a little while.”
Half an hour later she came into the parlor, where I was waiting for her. Her glance had that brilliance and her cheeks that faint glow that always gave her new beauty after the bath. Seeing me, she stopped and said, “Ah, why are you here?”
“Because I thought you would come.”
“I came … because I thought you were waiting for me.”
She sat down on the sofa, and broke in upon what she was thinking about, to say to me, “Why is it?”
“Why is what?”
“What always happens.”
“You have not told me what.”
“That if I imagine you are going to do a thing, you do it.”
“And why did something tell me you were coming?”
“I have been wondering if, when you are not here any longer, you will be able to divine what I am doing, and I to know if you are thinking …”
“Of you?”
“That is what I meant. Come to mamma’s sewing-room. I have done nothing today but wait for you, and she wants me to get through this afternoon with what I am sewing.”
“Shall we be alone there?”
“Why are you suddenly so anxious for us to be always alone?”
“Everything which disturbs me …”
“Hush!” she said, putting a finger to her lips. “Don’t you see? They are in the storeroom. So those women,” she added, seating herself, “are very beautiful. What are their names?”
“Ah, they are very beautiful.”
“And they live in the mountains?”
“On the banks of the river.”
“Exposed to sun and rain? Their complexion cannot be very good.”
“Under the shade of great forests.”
“What do they do there?”
“I do not know what they do. I do not meet them any more.”
“How long since? Why don’t they wait for you? Being so very lovely, it must cause you much sorrow.”
“They are lovely; but you do not know what it is to be as they are.”
“Then you must explain it to me. What are they? No, Señor,” she added, hiding under the folds of the Irish linen upon her lap the hand I had tried to take.
“Very well.”
“But I can’t sew, and you haven’t told me what those—what are their names?”
“I am going to confess it to you.”
“Very well, do it.”
“They are jealous of you.”
“Angry with me?”
“Yes.”
“With me?”
“Formerly I thought of no one but them; afterwards—”
“Afterwards?”
“Then I forgot them for you.”
“In that case I am going to be very proud.”
Her hand was now resting on the arm of my chair, and I knew I could take it.
She went on: “Are there Undines in Europe? Listen, my friend, are there any in Europe?”
“Yes.”
“Then—who knows?”
“But I am sure that there they paint, and wear corsets and tight boots.”
“Well, I know a person who is set distracted by a pair of pretty feet, and—oh, the flowers must be running out of the bath through the drain!”
“That means that I must go?”
“It would be a pity to lose them.”
“It is something more than that.”
“So it is. We should not be seen alone so often. Emma and mamma are coming.”
XLI
My father had determined to go to the city before my departure, not only because his business urgently demanded it, but also because
