Maria (GB English) - страница 6

Few people who knew our family would have suspected that Maria was not my parents' daughter. She spoke our language well, was kind, lively and intelligent. When my mother stroked her head at the same time as my sisters and me, no one could have guessed which one was the orphan there.

She was nine years old. The abundant hair, still of a light brown colour, flowing loose and twirling about her slender, movable waist; the chatty eyes; the accent with something of the melancholy that our voices did not have; such was the image I carried of her when I left my mother's house: such she was on the morning of that sad day, under the creepers of my mother's windows.

Chapter VIII

Early in the evening Emma knocked at my door to come to table. I bathed my face to hide the traces of tears, and changed my dresses to excuse my lateness.

Mary was not in the dining-room, and I vainly imagined that her occupations had delayed her longer than usual. My father noticing an unoccupied seat, asked for her, and Emma excused her by saying that she had had a headache since that afternoon, and was asleep. I tried not to be impressed; and, making every effort to make the conversation pleasant, spoke with enthusiasm of all the improvements I had found in the estates we had just visited. But it was all to no purpose: my father was more fatigued than I was, and retired early; Emma and my mother got up to put the children to bed, and see how Maria was, for which I thanked them, and was no longer surprised at the same feeling of gratitude.

Though Emma returned to the dining-room, the conversation did not last long. Philip and Eloise, who had insisted on my taking part in their card-playing, accused my eyes of drowsiness. He had asked my mother's permission in vain to accompany me to the mountain the next day, and had retired dissatisfied.

Meditating in my room, I thought I guessed the cause of Maria's suffering. I recollected the manner in which I had left the room after my arrival, and how the impression made upon me by her confidential accent had caused me to answer her with the lack of tact peculiar to one who is repressing an emotion. Knowing the origin of her grief, I would have given a thousand lives to obtain a pardon from her; but the doubt aggravated the confusion of my mind. I doubted Mary's love; why, I thought to myself, should my heart strive to believe that she was subjected to this same martyrdom? I considered myself unworthy of possessing so much beauty, so much innocence. I reproached myself for the pride that had blinded me to the point of believing myself the object of his love, being only worthy of his sisterly affection. In my madness I thought with less terror, almost with pleasure, of my next journey.

Chapter IX

I got up at dawn the next day. The gleams that outlined the peaks of the central mountain range to the east, gilded in a semicircle above it some light clouds that broke away from each other to move away and disappear. The green pampas and jungles of the valley were seen as if through a bluish glass, and in the midst of them, some white huts, smoke from the freshly burnt mountains rising in a spiral, and sometimes the churns of a river. The mountain range of the West, with its folds and bosoms, resembled cloaks of dark blue velvet suspended from their centres by the hands of genii veiled by the mists. In front of my window, the rose bushes and the foliage of the orchard trees seemed to fear the first breezes that would come to shed the dew that glistened on their leaves and blossoms. It all seemed sad to me. I took the shotgun: I signalled to the affectionate Mayo, who, sitting on his hind legs, was staring at me, his brow furrowed with excessive attention, awaiting the first command; and jumping over the stone fence, I took the mountain path. As I entered, I found it cool and trembling under the caresses of the last auras of the night. The herons were leaving their roosts, their flight forming undulating lines that the sun silvered, like ribbons left to the whim of the wind. Numerous flocks of parrots rose from the thickets to head for the neighbouring cornfields; and the diostedé greeted the day with its sad and monotonous song from the heart of the sierra.