Maria (GB English)

Chapter I

I was still a child when I was taken away from my father's house to begin my studies at the school of Dr. Lorenzo María Lleras, established in Bogotá a few years before, and famous throughout the Republic at that time.

On the night before my journey, after the evening, one of my sisters came into my room, and without saying a word of affection to me, for her voice was filled with sobs, she cut a few hairs from my head: when she came out, some of her tears had rolled down my neck.

I fell asleep in tears, and experienced as it were a vague presentiment of the many sorrows I should suffer afterwards. Those hairs taken from a child's head; that caution of love against death in the face of so much life, made my soul wander in my sleep over all the places where I had spent, without understanding it, the happiest hours of my existence.

The next morning my father untied my mother's arms from my head, wet with tears. My sisters wiped them away with kisses as they bade me farewell. Mary waited humbly for her turn, and stammering her farewell, pressed her rosy cheek to mine, chilled by the first sensation of pain.

A few moments later I followed my father, who hid his face from my gaze. The footsteps of our horses on the pebbly path drowned my last sobs. The murmur of the Sabaletas, whose meadows lay to our right, was diminishing by the minute. We were already rounding one of the hills along the path, on which desirable travellers used to be seen from the house; I turned my eyes towards it, looking for one of the many loved ones: Maria was under the vines that adorned the windows of my mother's room.

Chapter II

Six years later, the last days of a luxurious August greeted me on my return to the native valley. My heart was overflowing with patriotic love. It was already the last day of the journey, and I was enjoying the most fragrant morning of the summer. The sky had a pale blue tinge: to the eastward and over the towering crests of the mountains, still half mourned, wandered a few golden clouds, like the gauze of a dancer's turban scattered by an amorous breath. To the south floated the mists that had blanketed the distant mountains during the night. I crossed plains of green grassland, watered by streams whose passage was obstructed by beautiful cows, which abandoned their grazing grounds to wander into the lagoons or along paths vaulted by flowering pines and leafy fig trees. My eyes had fixed greedily on those places half hidden from the traveller by the canopy of the ancient groves; on those farmhouses where I had left virtuous and friendly people. At such moments my heart would not have been moved by the arias of U***'s piano: the perfumes I inhaled were so pleasing compared to that of her luxurious dresses; the song of those nameless birds had harmonies so sweet to my heart!

I was speechless before so much beauty, the memory of which I had thought I had preserved in my memory because some of my stanzas, admired by my fellow students, had pale tints of it. When in a ballroom, flooded with light, full of voluptuous melodies, of a thousand mixed scents, of whispers of so many seductive women's clothes, we meet the one we dreamed of at eighteen, and a fugitive glance of hers burns our forehead, and her voice makes all other voices mute for us for an instant, and her flowers leave behind them unknown essences; then we fall into a heavenly prostration: our voice is powerless, our ears no longer hear hers, our eyes can no longer follow her. But when, our minds refreshed, she returns to our memory hours later, our lips murmur her praise in song, and it is that woman, it is her accent, it is her look, it is her light step on the carpets, which imitates that song, which the vulgar will believe to be ideal. Thus the sky, the horizons, the pampas and the peaks of the Cauca, make those who contemplate them fall silent. The great beauties of creation cannot be seen and sung at the same time: they must return to the soul, pale by unfaithful memory.

Before the sun had set, I had already seen my parents' house white on the mountainside. As I approached it, I counted with anxious eyes the clusters of its willows and orange trees, through which I saw the lights that were spread out in the rooms cross a little later.

At last I breathed in that never-forgotten smell of the orchard that had been formed. My horse's shoes sparkled on the cobbles of the courtyard. I heard an indefinable cry; it was my mother's voice: as she clasped me in her arms and drew me close to her bosom, a shadow fell over my eyes: a supreme pleasure that moved a virgin nature.

When I tried to recognise in the women I saw, the sisters I had left as children, Mary was standing beside me, and her wide lidded eyes were veiled with long lashes. It was her face that was covered with the most remarkable blush as my arm rolled from her shoulders and brushed her waist; and her eyes were still moist as she smiled at my first affectionate expression, like those of a child whose cry has silenced a mother's caress.

Chapter III

At eight o'clock we went to the dining room, which was picturesquely situated on the eastern side of the house. From it we could see the bare ridges of the mountains against the starry background of the sky. The auras of the desert passed through the garden gathering scents to come and frolic with the rose bushes around us. The fickle wind let us hear the murmur of the river for moments. That nature seemed to display all the beauty of its nights, as if to welcome a friendly guest.

My father sat at the head of the table and had me placed on his right; my mother sat on the left, as usual; my sisters and the children were seated indistinctly, and Maria was opposite me.

My father, grown grey in my absence, gave me looks of satisfaction, and smiled in that mischievous and sweet way, which I have never seen on any other lips. My mother spoke little, for at such times she was happier than all those around her. My sisters insisted on making me taste the snacks and creams; and she blushed whoever I addressed a flattering word or an examining glance to would blush. Maria hid her eyes from me tenaciously; but I could admire in them the brilliancy and beauty of those of the women of her race, on two or three occasions when, in spite of herself, they met mine squarely; her red lips, moist and graciously imperative, showed me only for an instant the veiled primness of her pretty teeth. She wore, like my sisters, her abundant dark-brown hair in two plaits, one of which was topped with a red carnation. She wore a dress of light muslin, almost blue, of which only part of the bodice and skirt could be seen, for a scarf of fine purple cotton concealed her breasts down to the base of her dull white throat. As her braids were turned behind her back, from where they rolled as she bent to serve, I admired the underside of her deliciously turned arms, and her hands manicured like those of a queen.

When supper was over, the slaves lifted the tablecloths; one of them said the Lord's Prayer, and their masters completed the prayer.

The conversation then became confidential between my parents and me.

Mary took in her arms the child sleeping on her lap, and my sisters followed her to the chambers: they loved her dearly and vied for her sweet affection.

Once in the living room, my father kissed his daughters' foreheads as he left. My mother wanted me to see the room that had been set aside for me. My sisters and Maria, less shy now, wanted to see what effect I was having with the care with which it was decorated. The room was at the end of the corridor at the front of the house; the only window in it was as high as a comfortable table; and at that moment, with the leaves and bars open, flowering branches of rose-bushes were coming in through it to finish decorating the table, where a beautiful blue porcelain vase was busily holding in its glass lilies and lilies, carnations and purple river bells. The bed curtains were of white gauze tied to the columns with broad rose-coloured ribbons; and near the headboard, by a motherly finery, was the little Dolorosa that had served me for my altars when I was a child. Some maps, comfortable seats, and a beautiful toilet set completed the trousseau.

–What beautiful flowers! -I exclaimed as I saw all the flowers from the garden and the vase covering the table.

–Maria remembered how much you liked them," my mother remarked.

I turned my eyes to thank him, and his eyes seemed to struggle to bear my gaze this time.

–Mary," I said, "is going to keep them for me, because they are noxious in the room where you sleep.

–Is it true? -he replied; "I will replace them to-morrow.

How sweet his accent was!

–How many of these are there?

–Lots of them; they will be replenished every day.

After my mother had embraced me, Emma held out her hand to me, and Maria, leaving me for a moment with hers, smiled as in childhood she smiled at me: that dimpled smile was that of the child of my childhood loves surprised in the face of a virgin of Raphael.

Chapter IV

I slept peacefully, as when I used to fall asleep in my childhood to one of Peter the slave's marvellous stories.

I dreamt that Mary came in to renew the flowers on my table, and that on her way out she had brushed the curtains of my bed with her flowing muslin skirt dotted with little blue flowers.

When I awoke, the birds were fluttering in the foliage of the orange and grapefruit trees, and orange blossoms filled my room with their scent as soon as I opened the door.

Mary's voice then came to my ears sweet and pure: it was her child's voice, but deeper and ready to lend itself to all the modulations of tenderness and passion; oh, how often in my dreams an echo of that same accent has come to my soul, and my eyes have searched in vain for that orchard where I saw her so beautiful on that August morning!

The child whose innocent caresses had been all for me, would no longer be the companion of my games; but on golden summer evenings she would be on walks by my side, in the midst of my sisters' group; I would help her to grow her favourite flowers; in the evenings I would hear her voice, her eyes would look at me, a single step would separate us.

After I had slightly arranged my dresses, I opened the window, and saw Maria in one of the garden streets, accompanied by Emma: she was in a darker dress than the evening before, and her purple kerchief, tied round her waist, fell in a band over her skirt; her long hair, divided into two braids, half concealed part of her back and bosom; she and my sister had bare feet. She carried a porcelain vase a little whiter than the arms that held her, which she filled with open roses during the night, discarding the less moist and luxuriant ones as withered. She, laughing with her companion, dipped her cheeks, fresher than the roses, into the overflowing bowl. Emma discovered me; Maria noticed it, and, without turning to me, fell on her knees to hide her feet from me, untied her kerchief from her waist, and, covering her shoulders with it, pretended to play with the flowers. The nubile daughters of the patriarchs were no more beautiful in the dawns when they gathered flowers for their altars.

After lunch, my mother called me to her sewing room. Emma and Maria were embroidering near her. She blushed again when I introduced myself; remembering perhaps the surprise I had unwittingly given her in the morning.

My mother wanted to see and hear me all the time.

Emma, more insinuating now, asked me a thousand questions about Bogota; demanded me to describe splendid balls, beautiful ladies' dresses in use, the most beautiful women then in high society. They listened without leaving their work. Maria sometimes glanced at me carelessly, or made low remarks to her companion at her seat; and as she rose to approach my mother to consult about the embroidery, I could see her feet beautifully shod: her light and dignified step revealed all the pride, not dejected, of our race, and the seductive modesty of the Christian virgin. Her eyes lit up when my mother expressed a desire that I should give the girls some lessons in grammar and geography, subjects in which they had but little knowledge. It was agreed that we would begin the lessons after six or eight days, during which time I would be able to assess the state of each girl's knowledge.

A few hours later I was told that the bath was ready and I went to it. A leafy, corpulent orange tree, overflowing with ripe fruit, formed a pavilion over the wide pool of burnished quarries: many roses were floating in the water: it resembled an oriental bath, and was perfumed with the flowers that Mary had picked in the morning.

Chapter V

Three days had passed when my father invited me to visit his estates in the valley, and I was obliged to oblige him; for I had a real interest in his enterprises. My mother was very anxious for our early return. My sisters were saddened. Mary did not entreat me, as they did, to return in the same week; but she followed me incessantly with her eyes during the preparations for the journey.

In my absence, my father had greatly improved his property: a handsome and costly sugar factory, many bushels of cane to supply it, extensive pastures with cattle and horses, good feedlots, and a luxurious dwelling-house, constituted the most remarkable features of his hot-land estates. The slaves, well dressed and contented, as far as it is possible to be in servitude, were submissive and affectionate to their master. I found men whom, as children a short time before, I had been taught to set traps for the chilacoas and guatines in the thickets of the woods: their parents and they returned to see me with unmistakable signs of pleasure. Only Pedro, the good friend and faithful ayo, was not to be found: he had shed tears as he placed me on the horse on the day of my departure for Bogotá, saying: "my love, I will see you no more". His heart warned him that he would die before my return.

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 piñuelas; 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 piñuelas, 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!…

Chapter VII

When my father made his last voyage to the West Indies, Solomon, a cousin of his whom he had loved from childhood, had just lost his wife. Very young they had come together to South America; and on one of their voyages my father fell in love with the daughter of a Spaniard, an intrepid naval captain, who, after having left the service for some years, was forced in 1819 to take up arms again in defence of the kings of Spain, and who was shot dead at Majagual on the twentieth of May, 1820.

The mother of the young woman my father loved demanded that he renounce the Jewish religion in order to give her to her as his wife. My father became a Christian at the age of twenty. His cousin became fond of the Catholic religion in those days, without, however, yielding to the urging that he should also be baptised, for he knew that what he had done for my father, giving him the wife he desired, would prevent him from being accepted by the woman he loved in Jamaica.

After some years of separation, the two friends met again. Solomon was already a widower. Sarah, his wife, had left him a child who was then three years old. My father found him morally and physically disfigured by grief, and then his new religion gave him comforts for his cousin, comforts which relatives had sought in vain to save him. He urged Solomon to give him his daughter to bring her up by our side; and he dared to propose that he would make her a Christian. Solomon agreed, saying, "It is true that my daughter alone has prevented me from undertaking a journey to India, which would improve my spirit and remedy my poverty: she also has been my only comfort after Sarah's death; but you will it, let her be your daughter. Christian women are sweet and good, and your wife must be a saintly mother. If Christianity gives in supreme misfortunes the relief you have given me, perhaps I would make my daughter unhappy by leaving her a Jewess. Do not tell our relatives, but when you reach the first coast where there is a Catholic priest, have her baptised and have the name Esther changed to Mary. This the unhappy man said, shedding many tears.

A few days later the schooner that was to take my father to the coast of New Granada set sail in Montego Bay. The light ship was testing her white wings, as a heron of our forests tests his wings before taking a long flight. Solomon came into my father's room, who had just finished mending his shipboard suit, carrying Esther seated in one of his arms, and hanging on the other a chest containing the child's luggage: she held out her little arms to her uncle, and Solomon, placing her in those of his friend, dropped sobbing on the little boot. That child, whose precious head had just bathed with a shower of tears the baptism of sorrow rather than the religion of Jesus, was a sacred treasure; my father knew it well, and never forgot it. Solomon was reminded by his friend, as he jumped into the boat that was to separate them, of a promise, and he answered in a choked voice: "My daughter's prayers for me, and mine for her and her mother, shall go up together to the feet of the Crucified.