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.