María replied in a low voice, “This kind grows only in the mountains.”
“And who sent them to you?” asked my father.
María was embarrassed; she glanced at me, and seemed to find something new and encouraging in my eyes, for she replied, in a firmer tone, “Efraín threw some into the garden; and it seemed to me a pity they should be thrown away, they are so rare. This is one of them.”
“María,” I said to her, “if I had known you would like these flowers so much, I would have kept them for you; but they did not seem to me as beautiful as the ones that are in the vase on my table every day.”
She understood now the cause of my resentment, and her glance told me so plainly.
That night, as the family was leaving the parlor, María happened to be seated near me. After much hesitation, I said to her, “María, they were for you, but I did not find yours.”
She began to murmur some excuse, when my hand accidentally touched hers, and I seized it and held it involuntarily. She stopped speaking. Her eyes had a frightened look, and turned away from mine. She put her free hand to her forehead, as if in pain, and leaned her head upon it, burying her bare arm in the sofa-pillow. At last she made an effort, and stood up; and then, as if finishing what she had begun, she said, though in so low a tone that I could scarcely hear her, “Then … I … I will pick the most beautiful flowers every day.”
Then she disappeared.
Souls like María’s are not ignorant of the common language of love; but they bow tremblingly at the first caress of the one they love, as the wood-poppy does under the wing of the wind.
I had confessed my love to María; she had encouraged me to confess it, humbling herself like a slave to pick up those flowers. I repeated to myself with delight her last words; her voice was still whispering in my ear, “Then I will pick the most beautiful flowers every day.”
XII
The moon had just risen, full and clear in the deep sky above the darkened mountains. It lighted up the ridges, whitened here and there by the tops of the yarumos, silvered the foam on the cataracts, and poured its melancholy light over all the valley. That silence, broken only by the roar of the river, was never more grateful to my soul.
Leaning my elbows on the windowsill, I imagined that I could see her in the midst of the rosebushes, where I had startled her that first morning; she was there picking up the cluster of lilies, sacrificing pride to love. Then it was I who was to make the untroubled sleep of childhood impossible for her hereafter; it was I who could tell her of love, could make her the object of my life. Tomorrow! Magical word, the night we have been told we are beloved! Her glances, after this, would have nothing to conceal from me; she would make herself beautiful for my happiness and pride.
Never was a July morning in Cauca so lovely as María, when I met her the next day, a few moments after she had come from the bath; her hair loosened and half curled, her cheeks with the rose coming and going in them, and upon her lips that most pure smile which reveals in women like María a happiness impossible to conceal. Her eyes were now more sweet than brilliant. As she drew near me I observed a pretty and scarcely perceptible frown on her face; it was a sort of feigned severity which, afterwards, she often displayed towards me when, after having dazzled me with the full light of her beauty, she would impose silence upon my lips, which were about to tell her what she so well knew.
It had already become a necessity for me to be continually near her; I did not want to lose a moment of that existence which was now given up to love. I was greedy of happiness, even while perfectly happy. I spoke to María and my sister about their desire for studying with me; they were enthusiastic about the plan, and it was decided to begin that very day.
I taught them geography, used to read something in universal history with them, and very often pages of The Genius of Christianity. I learned to appreciate María’s gifts; she had a memory that let nothing go, and she took a childish delight in her advances in knowledge.
Emma had guessed our secret, and was pleased at our happiness. How could I hide from her, in those daily meetings, what was passing in my heart? Emma could not help observing my fixed gaze at the bewitching face of her companion, when I was giving some explanation. She could not help seeing María’s hand tremble when I took it and placed it upon some point on the map, searched for in vain by her. Whenever there was any domestic duty to attend to, it was always my sister who took it upon herself, leaving us alone for a moment. Then María, with a forced gravity on her face, though her lips would smile, would let me take one of her delicate, dimpled hands; and her tones, without ceasing to have their peculiar music, would grow slow and solemn as she spoke words which it would be vain for me to try to recall now: I cannot hear them any more, and when they are uttered by other lips they are not the same; if they were written on this page they would seem meaningless. They belong to another language, of which every phrase went from my memory many years ago.
XIII
One afternoon, as I came down from the mountain, I observed signs of excitement on the faces of the servants whom
