The Purple Land/Volume 1/Chapter 8
CHAPTER VIII.
LOVE OF THE BEAUTIFUL.
Early next morning I left Tolosa and travelled the whole day in a south-westerly direction. I did not hurry, but frequently dismounted to give my horse a sip of clear water and a taste of green herbage. I also called during the day at three or four estancia houses, but failed to hear anything that could be advantageous to me. In this way I covered about thirty-five miles of road, going always towards the eastern part of the Florida district in the heart of the country. About an hour before sunset I resolved to go no further that day; and I could not have hoped to find a nicer resting-place than the one I saw before me—a neat rancho with a wide corridor supported by wooden pillars, standing amidst .a bower of fine old weeping willows. It was a calm sunshiny afternoon, peace and quiet resting on everything, even bird and insect, for they were silent or uttered only soft subdued notes; and that modest lodge, with its rough stone walls and thatched roof, seemed to be in harmony with it all. It looked like the home of simple-minded pastoral people that had for their only world the grassy wilderness, watered by many clear streams, bounded ever by that far-off unbroken ring of the horizon, and arched over with blue heaven, starry by night and filled by day with sweet sunshine.
On approaching the house I was agreeably disappointed at having no pack of loudmouthed ferocious dogs rushing forth to rend the presumptuous stranger to pieces, a thing one always expects. The only signs of hfe visible were a white-haired old man seated within the corridor smoking, and a few yards from it a young gil standing under a willow tree. But that girl was a picture for one to eaze long upon and carry about in his memory for alifetime. Never had I beheld anything so exquisitely beautiful. It was not that kind of beauty so common in these countries, which bursts upon you like the sudden south-west wind called pampero, almost knocking the breath out of your body, then passing away for ever, leaving you with hair ruffled up and your mouth full of dust. Its influence was more like that of the spring wind, which blows softly, scarcely fanning your cheek, yet infusing through all your system a delicious magical sensation like—like nothing else in earth or heaven. She was, I fancy, about fourteen years old, slender and graceful in figure, and with a marvellously clear white skin, on which this bright Oriental sun had not painted one freckle. Her features were, I think, the most perfect I have ever seen in any human being, and her golden brown hair hung in two heavy braids behind, almost to her knees. As I approached, she looked up to me out of sweet grey-blue eyes; there was a bashful smile on her lips, but she did not move or speak. On the willow branch over her head were two young doves; they were, it appeared, her pets, unable yet to fly, and she had placed them there. The little things had crept up just beyond her reach, and she was trying to get them by pulling the branch down towards her.
Leaving my horse I came to her side.
"I am tall, senorita," I said, "and can perhaps reach them."
She watched me with anxious interest while I gently pulled her birds from their perch and transferred them to her hands. Then she kissed them, well pleased, and with a gentle hesitation in her manner asked me in.
Under the corridor I made the acquaintance of her grandfather, the white-haired old man, and found him a person it was very easy to get on with, for he agreed readily with everything I said. Indeed, even before I could get a remark out he began eagerly assenting to it. There, too, I met the girl's mother, who was not at all like her beautiful daughter, but had black hair and eyes, and a brown skin as most Spanish-American women have. Evidently the father is the white golden-haired one, I thought. When the girl's brother came in, by-and-by, he unsaddled my horse and led him away to pasture; this boy was also dark, darker even than his mother.
The simple spontaneous kindness with which these people treated me had a flavour about it, the like of which I have never experienced elsewhere. It was not the common hospitality usually shown to a stranger, but a natural unstrained kindness, such as they might be expected to show to a_ beloved brother or son who had gone out from them in the morning and was now returned.
By-and-by the girl's father came in, and I was extremely surprised to find him a small wrinkled dark specimen, with jet black beadlike eyes and podgy nose, showing plainly enough that he had more than a dash of aboriginal Charrua blood in his veins. This upset my theory about the girl's fair skin and blue eyes; the little dark man was, however, quite as sweet tempered as the others, for he came in, sat down and joined in the conversation, just as if I had been one of the family whom he had expected to find there. While I talked to these good people on simple pastoral matters, all the wickedness of Orientals—the throat-cutting war of Whites and Reds and the unspeakable cruelties of the ten years' siege—were quite forgotten; I wished that I had been born amongst them and was one of them, not a weary wandering Englishman, overburdened with the arms and armour of civilization, and staggering along, like Atlas, with the weight of a kingdom on which the sun never sets on my shoulders.
By-and-by this good man, whose real name I never discovered, for his wife simply called him Batata (sweet potato), looking critically at his pretty girl, remarked: "Why have you decked yourself out like this, my daughter—it is not a Saints' day?"
His daughter indeed! I mentally ejaculated; she is more like the daughter of the evening star than of such a man. But his words were unreasonable, to say the least of it; for the sweet child, whose name was Margarita, though wearing shoes had no stockings on, while her dress—very clean, certainly—was a cotton print so faded that the pattern was quite undistinguishable. The only pretence of finery of any description was a narrow bit of blue ribbon tied about her lily-white neck. And yet had she been wearing richest silks and costhest gems she could not have blushed and smiled with a prettier confusion.
"We are expecting uncle Anselmo this evening, papita," she replied.
"Leave the child, Batata," said the mother, "You know what a craze she has for Anselmo; when he comes she is always prepared to receive him like a queen."
This was really almost too much for me, and I was powerfully tempted to jump up and embrace the whole family on the spot. How sweet was this primitive simplicity of mind! Here, doubtless, was the one spot on the wide earth where the golden age still lingered, appearing like the last beams of the setting sun touching some prominent spot, when elsewhere all things are in shadow. Ah, why had fate led me into this sweet arcadia, since I must presently leave it to go back to the dull world of toil and strife,
Which makes men mad, the tug for wealth and power,
The passions and the cares that wither life
And waste its little hour"?
Had it not been for the thought of Romola waiting for me over there in Montevideo I could have said: "O good friend, Sweet Potato, and good friends all, let me remain for ever with you under this roof, sharing your simple pleasures, and, wishing for nothing better, forget that great crowded world where all men are striving to conquer nature and death and to win fortune; until, having wasted their miserable lives in their vam endeavours, they drop down and the earth is shovelled over them!"
Shortly after sunset the expected Anselmo arrived to spend the night with his relations, and scarcely had he got down from his horse before Margarita was at his side to ask the avuncular blessing, at the same time raising his hand to her delicate lips. He gave his blessing, touching her golden hair; then she lifted her face smiling and looking exceedingly happy.
Anselmo was a fine specimen of the Oriental gaucho, dark and with good features, his hair and moustache intensely black. He wore costly clothes, while his whip-handle, the sheath of his long knife, and other things about him were of massive silver. Of silver also were his heavy spurs, the pommel of his saddle, his stirrups and the headstall of his bridle. He was a great talker; never, in fact, in the whole course of my varied experience have I encountered any one who could pour out such an incessant stream of talk about small matters as this man. We all sat together in the social kitchen, sipping maté; I taking little part in the conversation, which was all about horses, scarcely even listening to what the others were saying. Reclining against the wall, I occupied myself agreeably watching the sweet face of Margarita, which in her happy excitement had become suffused with a delicate rosy colour. I have always had a great love for the beautiful: sunsets, wild flowers, especially verbenas so prettily called Margaritas in this country; and beyond everything the rainbow spanning the vast gloomy heavens with its green and violet arch when the storm-cloud passes eastward over the wet sun-flushed earth. All these things have a singular fascination for my soul. But beauty when it presents itself in the human form is even more than these things. There is in it a magnetic power drawing my heart; a something that is not love, for how can a married man have a feeling like that towards any one except his wife? No, it is not love, but a sacred etherial kind of affection, and resembling love only as the fragrance of violets resembles the taste of honey and the honey-comb.
At length, some time after supper, Margarita to my sorrow rose to retire, though not without first once more asking her uncle's blessing. After her departure from the kitchen, finding that the inexhaustible talking-machine Anselmo was still holding forth fresh as ever, I lit a cigar and prepared to listen.