My knowledge of the Quichua language, acquired solely by the study
of the vocabularies, was at first of little advantage to me. I found
myself unable to converse on familiar topics with the people of Yala;
and this was a great difficulty in my way, and a cause of distress for
more reasons than one. I was unprovided with books, or other means of
profit and recreation, and therefore eagerly sought out the few people
in the place able to converse in Spanish, for I have always been fond
of social intercourse. There were only four: one very old man, who
died shortly after my arrival; another was Osuna, a man for whom I had
conceived an unconquerable aversion; the other two were women, the
widow Riquelme and her daughter. About this girl I must speak at some
length, since it is with her fortunes that this narrative is chiefly
concerned. The widow Riquelme was poor, having only a house in Yala,
but with a garden sufficiently large to grow a plentiful provision of
fruit and vegetables, and to feed a few goats, so that these women had
enough to live on, without ostentation, from their plot of ground. They
were of pure Spanish blood; the mother was prematurely old and faded;
Marta, who was a little over fifteen when I arrived at Yala, was the
loveliest being I had ever beheld; though in this matter my opinion
may be biased, for I only saw her side by side with the dark-skinned
coarse-haired Indian women, and compared with their faces of ignoble
type Marta's was like that of an angel. Her features were regular;
her skin white, but with that pale darkness in it seen in some whose
families have lived for generations in tropical countries. Her eyes,
shaded by long lashes, were of that violet tint seen sometimes in
people of Spanish blood--eyes which appear black until looked at
closely. Her hair was, however, the crown of her beauty and chief
glory, for it was of great length and a dark shining gold colour--a
thing wonderful to see!
The society of these two women, who were full of sympathy and
sweetness, promised to be a great boon to me, and I was often with
them; but very soon I discovered that, on the contrary, it was only
about to add a fresh bitterness to my existence. The Christian
affection I felt for this beautiful child insensibly degenerated into
a mundane passion of such overmastering strength that all my efforts
to pluck it out of my heart proved ineffectual. I cannot describe my
unhappy condition during the long months when I vainly wrestled with
this sinful emotion, and when I often thought in the bitterness of my
heart that my God had forsaken me. The fear that the time would come
when my feelings would betray themselves increased on me until at
length, to avoid so great an evil, I was compelled to cease visiting
the only house in Yala where it was a pleasure for me to enter. What
had I done to be thus cruelly persecuted by Satan? was the constant cry
of my soul. Now I know that this temptation was only a part of that
long and desperate struggle in which the servants of the prince of the
power of the air had engaged to overthrow me.
Not for five years did this conflict with myself cease to be a constant
danger--a period which seemed to my mind not less than half a century.
Nevertheless, knowing that idleness is the parent of evil, I was
incessantly occupied; for when there was nothing to call me abroad,
I laboured with my pen at home, filling in this way many volumes,
which in the end may serve to throw some light on the great historical
question of the Incas' Cis-Andine dominion, and its effect on the
conquered nations.
When Marta was twenty years old it became known in Yala that she had
promised her hand in marriage to one Cosme Luna, and of this person a
few words must be said. Like many young men, possessing no property
or occupation, and having no disposition to work, he was a confirmed
gambler, spending all his time going about from town to town to attend
horse-races and cock-fights. I had for a long time regarded him as an
abominable pest in Yala, a wretch possessing a hundred vices under a
pleasing exterior, and not one redeeming virtue, and it was therefore
with the deepest pain that I heard of his success with Marta. The
widow, who was naturally disappointed at her daughter's choice, came to
me with tears and complaints, begging me to assist her in persuading
her beloved child to break off an engagement which promised only to
make her unhappy for life. But with that secret feeling in my heart,
ever-striving to drag me down to my ruin, I dared not help her, albeit,
I would gladly have given my right hand to save Marta from the calamity
of marrying such a man.
The tempest which these tidings had raised in my heart never abated
while the preparations for the marriage were going on. I was forced
now to abandon my work, for I was incapable of thought; nor did all my
religious exercises avail to banish for one moment the strange, sullen
rage which had taken complete possession of me. Night after night I
would rise from my bed and pace the floor of my room for hours, vainly
trying to shut out the promptings of some fiend perpetually urging
me to take some desperate course against this young man. A thousand
schemes for his destruction suggested themselves to my mind, and when
I had resolutely dismissed them all and prayed that my sinful temper
might be forgiven, I would rise from my knees still cursing him a
thousand times more than ever.
In the meantime, Marta herself saw nothing wrong in Cosme, for love had
blinded her. He was young, good looking, could play on the guitar and
sing, and was master of that easy, playful tone in conversation which
is always pleasing to women. Moreover, he dressed well and was generous
with his money, with which he was apparently well provided.
In due time they were married, and Cosme, having no house of his own,
came to live with his mother-in-law in Yala. Then, at length, what I
had foreseen also happened. He ran out of money, and his new relations
had nothing he could lay his hands on to sell. He was too proud to
gamble for coppers, and the poor people of Yala had no silver to risk;
he could not or would not work, and the vacant life he was living began
to grow wearisome. Once more he took to his old courses, and it soon
grew to be a common thing for him to be absent from home for a month or
six weeks at a time. Marta looked unhappy, but would not complain or
listen to a word against Cosme; for whenever he returned to Yala then
his wife's great beauty was like a new thing to him, bringing him to
her feet, and making him again for a brief season her devoted lover and
slave.
She at length became a mother. For her sake I was glad; for now with
her infant boy to occupy her mind Cosme's neglect would seem more
endurable. He was away when the child was born; he had gone, it was
reported, into Catamarca, and for three months nothing was heard of
him. This was a season of political troubles, and men being required to
recruit the forces, all persons found wandering about the country not
engaged in any lawful occupation, were taken for military service. And
this had happened to Cosme. A letter from him reached Marta at last,
informing her that he had been carried away to San Luis, and asking her
to send him two hundred pesos, as with that amount he would be able to
purchase his release. But it was impossible for her to raise the money;
nor could she leave Yala to go to him, for her mother's strength was
now rapidly failing, and Marta could not abandon her to the care of
strangers. All this she was obliged to tell Cosme in the letter she
wrote to him, and which perhaps never reached his hands, for no reply
to it ever came.
At length, the widow Riquelme died; then Marta sold the house and
garden and all she possessed, and taking her child with her, went out
to seek her husband. Travelling first to the town of Jujuy, she there,
with other women, attached herself to a convoy about to start on a
journey to the southern provinces. Several months went by, and then
came the disastrous tidings to Yala that the convoy had been surprised
by Indians in a lonely place and all the people slain.
I will not here dwell on the anguish of mind I endured on learning
Marta's sad end: for I tried hard to believe that her troubled life was
indeed over, although I was often assured by my neighbours that the
Indians invariably spare the women and children.
Every blow dealt by a cruel destiny against this most unhappy woman
had pierced my heart; and during the years that followed, and when the
villagers had long ceased to speak of her, often in the dead of the
night I rose and sought the house where she had lived, and walking
under the trees in that garden where I had so often held intercourse
with her, indulged a grief which time seemed powerless to mitigate.