“Shan’t we go to the oratory?”
“Not now. I want to stay here longer. I have so many things to say to you.”
“Can’t you tell me somewhere else? You will frustrate all the doctor’s care. For two days you have not been as obedient to him as you were.”
“They do not know that I am going to die,” she replied, sobbing upon Emma’s breast.
“Going to die! Going to die when Efraín is almost home?”
“I shall never see him again … I do not dare to hope for it. This is terrible, but it is certain. I have never felt the symptoms of my attack as I feel them now. I want you to know everything before it is too late for me to tell you. Listen: I want to leave for him everything I have which he has been fond of. Put in the little box where I keep his letters this locket and this ring—he gave it to me the night before he went away. In my blue apron wrap up my hair. Don’t feel so badly,” she said, laying her cold cheek against my sister’s, “I cannot now be his wife. God has been pleased to deliver him from the grief of seeing me as I am, from the trial of seeing me die. Alas! I could die happy if I could give him my last farewell. Take him in your arms, and tell him that I struggled in vain not to leave him—that I dreaded his loneliness more than death, and …”
María stopped speaking, and sank into Emma’s arms. My sister kissed her, but found her limp. She called, but could get no answer. She screamed, and they came to her aid.
All the doctor’s efforts to bring her out of the seizure were in vain, and the next morning he declared himself unable to save her life.
Braulio, José, and four peasants bore the corpse to the village, crossing those plains and resting under those trees where María had gone by my side, so loving and loved, the day of Tránsito’s wedding. My father and the priest followed the humble convoy, step by step.
My father came back at midday, slowly and alone. While dismounting from his horse, he tried in vain to repress his sobs. Seated in the parlor, between Emma and my motherland surrounded by the children, who were vainly awaiting his caress, he gave way to his grief. “I,” he said—“I, the author of that cursed journey, have killed her. If Salomón could come to me to ask for his daughter, what could I say to him? And Efraín! Efraín! Alas! to what have I summoned him? Is this the way I shall fulfill my promises?”
That afternoon they left the farm on the sierra, and passed the night in the valley, intending to go to the city the next day.
Braulio and Tránsito consented to occupy the house, and take care of it during the absence of the family.
LVII
On the loth of September, two months after María’s death, I had from Emma the last of that story which she had kept from giving me as long as possible. It was in the evening, and Juan was asleep upon my knees; he had fallen into the custom since my return, as if he instinctively guessed that I would try to make up for him María’s love and care.
Emma gave me the key of the closet, in the house on the sierra, in which were kept María’s clothes and all that she had especially left for me.
Early the next morning I set out for Santa ⸻, where my father had been staying for two weeks. He had made all arrangements for my return to Europe, upon which I was to start the eighteenth of that month.
At four in the afternoon of the twelfth I took leave of my father, making him believe that I wanted to spend the night with Carlos, so as to get to Cali earlier in the morning. He had in his hand a sealed packet, which he gave to me, saying: “It is to go to Kingston. It is Salomón’s last will and his daughter’s dowry papers. If my regard for your interests,” he added, in a trembling voice, “made me separate you from her, and hasten her death, perhaps, you will know how to forgive me. Who can do it, if not you?”
Profoundly moved by this affectionate and humble confession, I gave him a reply which made him take me again in his arms. I can still hear the accent of his last farewell.
Riding out into the plain, after fording the Amaime, I waited for Juan Ángel, to tell him to take the mountain road.
I began to hear the sound of the Zabaletas. I could see the tops of the willows. There, at a few steps from the path, was the broad stone which so often had been our seat. At last I was close to the garden, the confidant of our love. The turtledoves were flying about among the orange-trees. The wind was flinging down dry leaves on the paving.
I leaped from my horse and left him to his own will. I had neither voice nor strength to call out. I sat down on the stair where so many times her affectionate voice and loving eyes had said goodbye to me.
A little later, when it was almost night, I heard steps near me. It was an old slave, who had seen my horse loose, and had come to see who his owner was. Mayo followed her painfully. The sight of that dog, friend of my childhood, companion of my days of happiness, made me groan. He put up his head for me to pat, licked the dust from my boots, and sitting down at my feet, whined sorrowfully.
The slave-woman brought me the keys of the house, and told me that Braulio and Tránsito were on the mountain. I went into the parlor and walked several steps without being able
