VI.

Señor, when I am here and remember these things, I sometimes say to

myself: Why, old man, do you come to this tree to sit for an hour in

the shade, since there is not on all these plains a sadder or more

bitter place? My answer is, To one who has lived long, there is no

house and no spot of ground, overgrown with grass and weeds, where a

house once stood and where men have lived, that is not equally sad. For

this sadness is in us, in a memory of other days which follows us into

all places. But for the child there is no past: he is born into the

world light hearted like a bird; for him gladness is everywhere.

That is how it was with little Bruno, too young to feel the loss of a

father or to remember him long. It was her great love of this child

which enabled Donata to live through so terrible a calamity. She never

quitted El Ombú. An embargo had been placed on the estancia so that it

could not be sold, and she was not disturbed in her possession of the

house. She now shared it with an old married couple, who, being poor

and having a few animals, were glad of a place to live in rent free.

The man, whose name was Pascual, took care of Donata's flock and the

few cows and horses she owned along with his own. He was a simple,

good-tempered old man, whose only fault was indolence, and a love of

the bottle, and of play. But that mattered little, for when he gambled

he invariably lost, through not being sober, so that when he had any

money it was quickly gone.

Old Pascual first put Bruno on a horse and taught him to ride after the

flock, and to do a hundred things. The boy was like his father, of a

beautiful countenance, with black curling hair, and eyes as lively as

a bird's. It was not strange that Donata loved him as no mother ever

loved a son, but as he grew up a perpetual anxiety was in her heart

lest he should hear the story of his father's death and the cause of

it. For she was wise in this; she knew that the most dangerous of all

passions is that of revenge, since when it enters into the heart all

others, good or bad, are driven out, and all ties and interests and all

the words that can be uttered are powerless to restrain a man; and the

end is ruin. Many times she spoke of this to me, begging me with tears

never to speak of my dead friend to Bruno, lest he should discover the

truth, and that fatal rage should enter into his heart.

It had been Donata's custom, every day since Valerio's death, to take

a pitcher of water, fresh from the well, and pour it out on the ground,

on the spot where he had sunk down and expired, without that sight of

wife and child, that one kiss, for which he had cried. Who can say what

caused her to do such a thing? A great grief is like a delirium, and

sometimes gives us strange thoughts, and makes us act like demented

persons. It may have been because of the appearance of the dead face

as she first saw it, dry and white as ashes, the baked black lips, the

look of thirst that would give everything for a drink of cold water;

and that which she had done in the days of anguish, of delirium, she

had continued to do.

The spot where the water was poured each day being but a few yards

from the door of the house was of a dryness and hardness of fire-baked

bricks, trodden hard by the feet of I know not how many generations of

men, and by hoofs of horses ridden every day to the door. But after a

long time of watering a little green began to appear in the one spot;

and the green was of a creeping plant with small round malva-like

leaves, and little white flowers like porcelain shirt buttons. It

spread and thickened, and was like a soft green carpet about two yards

long placed on that dry ground, and it was of an emerald greenness all

the year round, even in the hot weather when the grass was dead and dry

and the plains were in colour like a faded yellow rag.

When Bruno was a boy of fourteen I went one day to help him in making

a sheepfold, and when our work was finished in the afternoon we went

to the house to sip maté. Before going in, on coming to that green

patch, Bruno cried out, "Have you ever seen so verdant a spot as this,

Nicandro, so soft and cool a spot to lie down on when one is hot and

tired?" He then threw himself down full length upon it, and, lying

at ease on his back, he looked up at Donata, who come out to us, and

spoke laughingly, "Ah, little mother of my soul! A thousand times have

I asked you why you poured water every day on this spot and you would

not tell me. Now I have found out. It was all to make me a soft cool

spot to lie on when I come back tired and hot from work. Look! is it

not like a soft bed with a green and white velvet coverlid; bring water

now, mother mine, and pour it on my hot, dusty face."

She laughed, too, poor woman, but I could see the tears in her

eyes--the tears which she was always so careful to hide from him.

All this I remember as if it had happened yesterday; I can see and

hear it all--Donata's laugh and the tears in her eyes which Bruno

could not see. I remember it so well because this was almost the last

time I saw her before I was compelled to go away, for my absence was

long. But before I speak of that change let me tell you of something

that happened about two years before at El Ombú, which brought a new

happiness into that poor widow's life.

It happened that among those that had no right to be on the land, but

came and settled there because there was no one to forbid them, there

was a man named Sanchez, who had built himself a small rancho about

half a league from the old house, and kept a flock of sheep. He was

a widower with one child, a little girl named Monica. This Sanchez,

although poor, was not a good man, and had no tenderness in his heart.

He was a gambler, always away from his rancho, leaving the flock to be

taken care of by poor little Monica. In winter it was cruel, for then

the sheep travel most, and most of all on cold, rough days; and she

without a dog to help her, barefooted on the thistle-grown land, often

in terror at the sight of cattle, would be compelled to spend the whole

day out of doors. More than once on a winter evening in bad weather I

have found her trying to drive the sheep home in the face of the rain,

crying with misery. It hurt me all the more because she had a pretty

face: no person could fail to see its beauty, though she was in rags

and her black hair in a tangle, like the mane of a horse that has been

feeding among the burrs. At such times I have taken her up on my saddle

and driven her flock home for her, and have said to myself: "Poor lamb

without a mother, if you were mine I would seat you on the horns of the

moon; but, unhappy one! he whom you call father is without compassion."

At length, Sanchez, finding himself without money, just when strangers

from all places were coming to Chascomus to witness a great race and

anxious not to lose this chance of large winnings, sold his sheep,

having nothing of more value to dispose of. But instead of winning he

lost, and then leaving Monica in a neighbour's house he went away,

promising to return for her in a few days. But he did not return, and

it was believed by everybody that he had abandoned the child.

It was then that Donata offered to take her and be a mother to the

orphan, and I can say, señor, that the poor child's own mother, who

was dead, could not have treated her more tenderly or loved her more.

And the pretty one had now been Donata's little daughter and Bruno's

playmate two years when I was called away, and I saw them not again and

heard no tidings of them for a space of five years--the five longest

years of my life.