“You ought not to feel so badly,” I said. “When I come back, you will have your doctoring free.”
“Of course, my dear fellow. Do you think I hadn’t considered that? Study hard, so as to come home soon. If I am not killed, meanwhile, by a fever caught on these plains, you may possibly find me in a dropsy. I am boring myself atrociously. They all wanted me to go to Buga to spend Christmas, and in order to stay at home, I had to pretend that I had sprained my ankle; though such conduct is likely to make me very unpopular with my numerous fair cousins. I shall finally have to invent some business in Bogotá—if only to bring back tanned skins and cloaks, the way Emigdio does. I’ll bring something.”
“A wife, for example,” I broke in.
“What! do you suppose I haven’t thought of that? A thousand times. Every night I make a hundred plans. Just imagine: in bed on my back by six in the afternoon, waiting for the slaves to come to prayers, for them to call me to take chocolate, and then compelled to hear a jumble about grubbing roots, clearing grassland, and cane-planting. Every morning, as soon as the first smell of crushed cane reaches my nose, my castles all tumble about my head.”
“But you read?”
“What can I read? With whom can I talk about what I read? With that stupid overseer who is half asleep by five o’clock?”
“The only conclusion is that you are in desperate need of marrying—that you are thinking of Matilde again, and are scheming to bring her here.”
“Literally correct. That is precisely the state of the case. As soon as I saw that I had been guilty of an egregious blunder in thinking of marrying your cousin—may God and she forgive me for it!—the temptation you speak of assaulted me. But do you know what usually happens to me? After costing me as much work as to solve one of Bacho’s problems, to imagine that Matilde is actually my wife and in this house, it makes me laugh to think what will become of the poor creature.”
“Why so?”
“Man! Matilde belongs to Bogotá as much as the fountain of San Carlos, as much as the statue of Bolívar, as much as Escamilla, the porter. I should lose her in the transplanting. And what could I do to prevent it?”
“Why, make yourself love her forever; give her all the luxuries and amusements you can—in short, you are rich, and she will inspire you to work. Besides, these plains, these forests, these rivers—has she ever seen such things? Can they be seen without being loved?”
“There you go with your poetry. What about my father and his peasant ways? My aunts, with their absurd pride and hypocrisy? And this loneliness? and the heat? and the … the devil!”
“Hold on,” I interrupted, laughing, “don’t take it so much to heart.”
“Let us talk no more of that. You must hurry back to cure me. When you do come back you are to marry the Señorita María, aren’t you?”
“If God grants it.”
“How would you like me to be your groomsman?”
“The best of all things.”
“Thanks. It’s agreed, then.”
After a moment’s silence, I said, “Have my horse ordered.”
“Must you go already?”
“I am sorry, but they expect me home early. You see, my journey is so near at hand—and I must still go today to take leave of Emigdio and my compadre Custodio; they are not very near, you know.”
“You are going on the thirtieth precisely?”
“Yes.”
“You have only five days, then. I must not keep you. Well, you have laughed at something, if it was only at my being bored so.”
Neither of us could conceal our sorrow at parting.
As I was fording the little Amaime, I heard someone calling me, and perceived Custodio coming out of the forest. He was riding a great yellowish colt not yet trained to the bit, seated on a saddle with an enormous pommel. He wore a blue striped shirt; his trousers were hitched up to his knees; and his long cloak hung down over his thighs. Behind him, mounted on a white mare bowed down by years and four great bunches of bananas, rode an idiot boy, the same one who discharged on the little farm the combined functions of swineherd, bird-catcher, and gardener.
“God preserve you, little friend,” said the old man, as he drew near. “If I had not shouted out so stubbornly, you would have got away from me.”
“I was going to your house.”
“You don’t say so! As for me I haven’t been out of these woods for quite a while, trying to run across that wretched cripple of a mule, who has cast her foal again; but she will have to pay me for them all together, crushing cane in the treadmill. If I had not thought of going out on the open ground of the pass to look for tracks, I should have been hunting for it yet. But I went straight out there, and no sooner said than done; there was the foal, half eaten, and as big as if he were two months old. I couldn’t even take off his hide, though I needed another one to make me some leggings, as the dogs won’t have to wait much longer for the ones I have.”
“Don’t let that trouble you, old friend, for you are bound to have young mules in plenty, and years enough to see them. Let’s go on, then.”
“It’s nothing, Señor,” said he, beginning to ride on ahead of me. “Still it’s all lost labor; the times are frightful. Just listen: honey down to a shilling; brown sugar, not worth talking about; the little sugar that comes out white, a dollar; cheese, given away; the pigs eating up the whole harvest of maize, and it might as well have been thrown
