was angry at last, and we could hardly content him. A few glasses of wine and some cigars ratified our armistice. As for the wine, our countryman remarked that the orange wine made in Buga was better, and the green anisete from the Paporrina sale. The cigars from Ambalema seemed to him inferior to the ones he carried in his pockets, stuffed in dried banana leaves and perfumed with chopped fig and orange leaves.
After two days, our Telemachus was now suitably dressed and groomed by Master Hilary; and though his fashionable clothes made him uncomfortable, and his new boots made him look like a candlestick, he had to submit, stimulated by vanity and by Charles, to what he called a martyrdom.
Once settled in the house where we lived, he amused us in the after-dinner hours by telling our landladies about the adventures of his journey and giving his opinion about everything that had attracted your attention in the city. In the street it was different, for we were obliged to leave him to his own devices, that is, to the jovial impertinence of the saddlers and hawkers, who ran to besiege him as soon as they saw him, to offer him Chocontana chairs, arretrancas, zamarros, braces and a thousand trinkets.
Fortunately, Emigdio had already finished all his shopping when he came to find out that the daughter of the lady of the house, an easy-going, carefree, laughing girl, was dying for him.
Charles, without stopping at bars, succeeded in convincing him that Micaelina had hitherto disdained the courtships of all the diners; but the devil, who does not sleep, made Emigdio surprise his kid and his beloved one night in the dining-room, when they thought the wretch asleep, for it was ten o'clock, the hour at which he was usually in his third sleep; a habit which he justified by always getting up early, even if he was shivering with cold.
When Emigdio saw what he had seen and heard what he had heard, which, if only he had seen and heard nothing for his and our peace of mind, he thought only of speeding up his march.
As he had no complaint against me, he confided in me the night before the journey, telling me, among many other unburdenings:
In Bogotá there are no ladies: these are all… seven-soled flirts. When this one has done it, what do you expect? I'm even afraid I won't say goodbye to her. There's nothing like the girls of our land; here there's nothing but danger. You see Carlos: he's a corpus altar, he goes to bed at eleven o'clock at night, and he's more full of himself than ever. Let him be; I'll let Don Chomo know so that he can put the ashes on him. I admire to see you thinking only of your studies.
So Emigdio departed, and with him the amusement of Carlos and Micaelina.
Such, in short, was the honourable and friendly friend whom I was going to visit.
Expecting to see him coming from inside the house, I gave way to the rear, hearing him shouting at me as he jumped over a fence into the courtyard:
–At last, you fool! I thought you'd left me waiting for you. Sit down, I'm coming. And he began to wash his hands, which were bloody, in the ditch in the courtyard.
–What were you doing? -I asked him after our greetings.
–As today is slaughter day, and my father got up early to go to the paddocks, I was rationing the blacks, which is a chore; but I'm not busy now. My mother is very anxious to see you; I'm going to let her know you're here. Who knows if we'll get the girls to come out, because they've become more closed-minded every day.
–Choto! he shouted; and soon a half-naked little black man, cute sultanas, and a dry, scarred arm, appeared.
–Take that horse to the canoe and clean the sorrel colt for me.
And turning to me, having noticed my horse, he added:
–Carrizo with the retinto!
–How did that boy's arm break down like that? -I asked.
–They're so rough, they're so rough! He's only good for looking after the horses.
Soon they began to serve lunch, while I was with Doña Andrea, Emigdio's mother, who almost left her kerchief without fringes, for a quarter of an hour we were alone talking.
Emigdio went to put on a white jacket to sit down at the table; but first he presented us with a black woman adorned with a Pastuzean cape with a handkerchief, wearing a beautifully embroidered towel hanging from one of her arms.
The dining room served as our dining room, whose furnishings were reduced to old cowhide couches, some altarpieces representing saints from Quito, hung high up on the not very white walls, and two small tables decorated with fruit bowls and plaster parrots.
The truth be told, there was no greatness at lunch, but Emigdio's mother and sisters were known to understand how to arrange it. The tortilla soup flavoured with fresh herbs from the garden; the fried plantains, shredded meat and cornmeal doughnuts; the excellent local chocolate; the stone cheese; the milk bread and the water served in big old silver jugs, left nothing to be desired.
When we were having lunch, I caught a glimpse of one of the girls peeping through a half-open door; and her cute little face, lit up by eyes as black as chambimbes, suggested that what she was hiding must be very much in harmony with what she was showing.
I said goodbye to Mrs. Andrea at eleven o'clock, because we had decided to go to see Don Ignacio in the paddocks where he was rodeoing, and to take advantage of the trip to take a bath in the Amaime.
Emigdio stripped off his jacket and replaced it with a threaded ruana; he took off his sock boots to put on worn-out espadrilles; he fastened some white tights of hairy goat skin; he put on a big Suaza hat with a white percale cover, and mounted the sorrel, first taking the precaution of blindfolding him with a handkerchief. As the colt curled up into a ball and hid his tail between his legs, the rider shouted at him: "You're coming with your trickery!" immediately unloading two resounding lashes with the Palmiran manatee he was wielding. So, after two or three corcovos, which did not even move the gentleman in his Chocontan saddle, I mounted and we set off.
As we reached the site of the rodeo, distant from the house more than half a league, my companion, after he had taken advantage of the first apparent flat to turn and scratch the horse, entered into a tug-of-war conversation with me. He unpacked all he knew about the matrimonial pretensions of Carlos, with whom he had resumed friendship since they met again in the Cauca.
–What do you say? -he ended up asking me.
I slyly dodged an answer; and he went on:
–What's the use of denying it? Charles is a working lad: once he is convinced that he can't be a planter unless he lays aside his gloves and umbrella first, he must do well. He still makes fun of me for lassoing, and making a fence, and barbequing mule; but he's got to do the same or go bust. Haven't you seen him?
–No.
–Do you think he doesn't go to the river to bathe when the sun is strong, and if they don't saddle his horse he won't ride, just so he won't get a tan and get his hands dirty? As for the rest, he's a gentleman, that's for sure: it wasn't eight days ago that he got me out of a jam by lending me two hundred patacones that I needed to buy some heifers. He knows he doesn't let it go to waste; but that's what you call serving in time. As for his marriage… I'll tell you one thing, if you offer not to scorch yourself.
–Say, man, say what you want.
–In your house they seem to live with a great deal of tone; and it seems to me that one of those little girls brought up among soots, like the ones in fairy tales, needs to be treated like a blessed thing.
He
