In half an hour I reached the house, and went to my mother’s sewing-room. Only she and Emma were there; more than an hour passed before I asked for María.
“We were with her in the oratory,” said Emma. “She went to the storeroom afterwards. She cannot know that you have come back.”
It had never happened before that I should return to the house and not see María within a few minutes. I was much afraid that she had fallen again into that dejection which so discouraged me; yet I had seen her making incessant efforts to overcome it during the past week.
An hour afterwards, Juan knocked at my door to call me to dinner. As I went out I found María leaning against the grated window of the sewing-room.
“Mamma didn’t call you,” said the laughing boy.
“Who taught you to tell falsehoods, then?” I replied; “María will not forgive you for that.”
“She was the one who sent me to do it,” said Juan, pointing at her.
I turned to María to see if it were true. I did not need to ask her; her smile confessed it. Her bright eyes expressed the old peaceful happiness which our love had taken from them. Upon her cheeks was the quick blush which used to beautify them in our childish sports. She wore a white dress and her braids fell in waves over the graceful skirt at the slightest movement she made.
“Why are you so sad and secluded?” she asked me. “I have not been so today.”
“I am not sure of that,” I replied, so as to have a pretext for going up close to look at her through the grating between us.
She lowered her eyes, pretending to tie over again the strings of her blue silk apron. Then she crossed her hands behind her back, and leaned against one of the window-shutters, saying, “Isn’t it true?”
“I doubted it, but since you have succeeded in deceiving me …”
“Deceiving you, indeed! Is it a good thing for you to go and shut yourself up, when you are going away after one night more?”
“I am glad to see you so courageous. And is it a good thing for me not to be able to see you for two hours after coming home?”
“What sort of an hour is twelve for coming down the mountain? Besides, I have been very busy. I saw you, though, as you were coming down. To prove it, you did not have your rifle, and Mayo was lagging far behind.”
“So you have been very busy. What have you been doing?”
“Oh, everything. Something good, and something bad.”
“Tell me what.”
“I have prayed a good deal.”
“Emma told me that already; what else have you done?”
“The bad thing?”
“Yes, the bad thing.”
“Will you go to pray with me tonight if I tell you?”
“Yes.”
“But you must not tell mamma; she will be angry.”
“I promise not to tell her.”
“I have been ironing.”
“You?”
“Of course, I.”
“But how did you manage it?”
“Without mamma’s knowing it.”
“But why do you need to roughen your hands with such work?”
“Ah! I wanted you to take away your finest shirts ironed by me. Aren’t you glad? Don’t you thank me?”
“But who taught you to iron? How in the world did you think of doing it?”
“One day when Juan Ángel brought back some shirts, saying that his master did not like them, I told Marcelina that I would help her to do them better.”
“I thank you a thousand times for all your pains. I never imagined that you had strength enough to manage an iron.”
“If you take a very small one, and carefully wrap up the handle in a handkerchief, it cannot hurt your hands.”
“Let me see yours.”
“Why? they are perfectly right.”
“Show them to me.”
“They are just as they always are.”
“I doubt it.”
“Look at them.”
I took them in mine, and stroked the palms, soft as satin.
“Is anything wrong with them?” she asked.
“As mine are rough …”
“They don’t feel so to me. What did you do on the mountain?”
“I suffered a great deal. I never thought they would feel so sorry about my going, nor that it would grieve me so sincerely to say goodbye to them—especially to Braulio and the girls.”
“What did they say?”
“Poor things! They couldn’t say anything, they cried so. But don’t you feel sad. I should not have told you of this. Let me remember you in our last hours together, as you were today, cheerful, almost happy.”
“Yes,” she said, wiping her eyes, “I want to be like that. Tomorrow! Only one more day! But it will be Sunday, and we shall be together all day. We will read together. And you must tell me how you most like to see me dressed.”
“Just as you are now.”
“Very well. There they come to call us to dinner. Goodbye.”
She used to take leave of me in that way, although we were to be together afterwards; for it seemed to her, as it did to me, that when we were with all the family we were separated from each other.
XLVII
At eleven o’clock in the evening of the twenty-ninth I took leave of the family and María in the parlor. I sat up in my room until I heard the clock strike one—the first hour of the dreaded day at last arrived; I did not want it to find me sleeping. Without undressing, I lay down on my bed at the stroke of two. María’s handkerchief, fragrant with the perfume which she always used, crumpled by her hands, and moistened by her tears, was on my pillow.
Two or three times I fell asleep, but awoke in nervous agitation. I tried to woo back the disturbed sleep, for asleep I should again see her radiantly beautiful as on the first days after my return; thoughtful and silent, as she was when I first declared to her my affection.
