I noticed that my father, while remaining a master, treated his slaves with affection, was jealous of his wives' good behaviour and caressed the children.

One afternoon, as the sun was setting, my father, Higinio (the butler) and I were returning from the farm to the factory. They were talking about work done and to be done; I was occupied with less serious things: I was thinking about the days of my childhood. The peculiar smell of the freshly felled woods and the smell of the ripe pinuelas; the chirping of the parrots in the neighbouring guaduales and guayabales; the distant pealing of some shepherd's horn, echoing through the hills; the chastening of the slaves returning from their labours with their tools on their shoulders; the snatches seen through the shifting reed beds: It all reminded me of the afternoons when my sisters, Maria and I, abusing some of my mother's tenacious licence, would take pleasure in picking guavas from our favourite trees, digging nests out of pinuelas, often with serious injury to arms and hands, and spying on parakeet chicks on the fences of the corrals.

As we came across a group of slaves, my father said to a young black man of remarkable stature:

–So, Bruno, is your marriage all set for the day after tomorrow?

–Yes, my master," he replied, taking off his reed hat and leaning on the handle of his spade.

–Who are the godparents?

–I will be with Dolores and Mr. Anselmo, if you please.

–Well. Remigia and you will be well confessed. Did you buy everything you needed for her and yourself with the money I sent for you?

–It's all done, my master.

–And that's all you want?

–You will see.

–The room Higinio pointed out to you, is it any good?

–Yes, my master.

–Oh, I know. What you want is dance.

Then Bruno laughed, showing his dazzlingly white teeth, turning to look at his companions.

–That's fair enough; you're very well behaved. You know," he added, turning to Higinio, "fix that, and make them happy.

–And are you leaving first?
– asked Bruno.

–No," I replied, "we are invited.

In the early hours of the next Saturday morning Bruno and Remigia were married. That night at seven o'clock my father and I mounted up to go to the dance, the music of which we were just beginning to hear. When we arrived, Julian, the slave-captain of the gang, came out to take the stirrup for us and to receive our horses. He was in his Sunday dress, and the long, silver-plated machete, the badge of his employment, hung from his waist. A room in our old dwelling-house had been cleared of the labouring goods it contained, in order to hold the ball in it. A wooden chandelier, suspended from one of the rafters, had half a dozen lights spinning round: the musicians and singers, a mixture of aggregates, slaves, and manumissioners, occupied one of the doors. There were but two reed flutes, an improvised drum, two alfandoques, and a tambourine; but the fine voices of the negritos intoned the bambucos with such mastery; there was in their songs such a heartfelt combination of melancholy, joyous, and light chords; the verses they sang were so tenderly simple, that the most learned dilettante would have listened in ecstasy to that semi-wild music. We entered the room in our hats and hats. Remigia and Bruno were dancing at that moment: she, wearing a follao of blue boleros, a red-flowered tumbadillo, a white shirt embroidered with black, and a choker and earrings of ruby-coloured glass, danced with all the gentleness and grace that were to be expected from her cimbrador stature. Bruno, with his threaded ruana cloths folded over his shoulders, his brightly coloured blanket breeches, flattened white shirt, and a new cabiblanco around his waist, tapped his feet with admirable dexterity.

After that hand, which is what the peasants call every piece of dancing, the musicians played their most beautiful bambuco, for Julian announced that it was for the master. Remigia, encouraged by her husband and the captain, at last resolved to dance a few moments with my father: but then she dared not raise her eyes, and her movements in the dance were less spontaneous. At the end of an hour we retired.

My father was satisfied with my attention during the visit we made to the estates; but when I told him that I wished henceforth to share his fatigues by remaining at his side, he told me, almost with regret, that he was obliged to sacrifice his own welfare to me, by fulfilling the promise he had made me some time before, to send me to Europe to finish my medical studies, and that I should set out on my journey in four months' time at the latest. As he spoke to me thus, his countenance took on a solemn seriousness without affectation, which was noticeable in him when he took irrevocable resolutions. This happened on the evening when we were returning to the sierra. It was beginning to get dark, and had it not been so, I should have noticed the emotion his refusal caused me. The rest of the journey was made in silence; how happy I should have been to see Maria again, if the news of this journey had not come between her and my hopes at that moment!

Chapter VI

What had happened in those four days in Mary's soul?

She was about to place a lamp on one of the tables in the drawing-room, when I approached to greet her; and I had already been surprised not to see her in the midst of the family group on the steps where we had just dismounted. The trembling of her hand exposed the lamp; and I lent her assistance, less calm than I thought I was. She looked slightly pale to me, and around her eyes was a slight shadow, imperceptible to one who had seen her without looking. She turned her face towards my mother, who was speaking at the moment, thus preventing me from examining it in the light that was near us; and I noticed then that at the head of one of her plaits was a wilted carnation; and it was doubtless the one I had given her the day before I left for the Valley. The little cross of enamelled coral that I had brought for her, like those of my sisters, she wore round her neck on a cord of black hair. She was silent, sitting in the middle of the seats my mother and I occupied. As my father's resolution about my journey did not depart from my memory, I must have seemed sad to her, for she said to me in an almost low voice:

–Did the trip hurt you?

–No, Maria," I replied, "but we have been sunbathing and walking so much....

I was going to say something more to her, but the confidential accent in her voice, the new light in her eyes which I surprised me with, prevented me from doing more than look at her, till, noticing that she was embarrassed by the involuntary fixedness of my glances, and finding myself examined by one of my father's (more fearful when a certain passing smile wandered on his lips), I left the room for my room.

I closed the doors. There were the flowers she had gathered for me: I kissed them; I wanted to inhale all their scents at once, seeking in them those of Mary's dresses; I bathed them with my tears.... Ah, you who have not wept for happiness like this, weep for despair, if your adolescence has passed, because you will never love again!

First love!… noble pride in feeling loved: sweet sacrifice of all that was dear to us before in favour of the beloved woman: happiness that, bought for one day with the tears of a whole existence, we would receive as a gift from God: perfume for all the hours of the future: inextinguishable light of the past: flower kept in the soul and which it is not given to disappointments to wither: only treasure that the envy of men cannot snatch from us: delicious delirium… inspiration from heaven… Mary! Mary! How I loved you! How I loved you! How I loved you!…