Chapter II · 8

One evening Garcín arrived laughing heartily, and yet exceeding sad.

The fair neighbor had been carried to the cemetery.

“News! News! The final canto of my poem. Niní is dead. Springtime arrives and Niní departs. A saving of violets for the countryside. Now only the epilogue of the poem remains. The publishers do not deign even to read my verses. You will very soon have to scatter. The law of time. The epilogue must be entitled thus: How the Blue Bird Takes Flight to the Azure Sky.”

Full spring! The trees in bloom, clouds rosy at dawn and pale at dusk; the gentle breeze that stirs the leaves and makes the ribbons of straw hats flutter with a singular rustle! Garcín has not gone to the country.

Behold him: he arrives in a new suit at our beloved Café Plombier, pale, with a melancholy smile.

“My friends, embrace me! Embrace me, all of you, like that, tightly; bid me farewell with all your heart, with all your soul... The blue bird flies...”

And poor Garcín wept, embraced us, clasped our hands with all his might, and departed.

We all said: “Garcín, the prodigal son, seeks out his father, the old Norman. Muses, farewell; farewell, Graces. Our poet has resolved to measure rags! Hey! A toast to Garcín!”

Pale, terrified, grief-stricken, on the following day all the patrons of the Café Plombier who were wont to make such an uproar in that ramshackle garret found ourselves in Garcín’s room. He lay upon his bed, upon bloodstained sheets, his skull shattered by a bullet. Upon the pillow lay fragments of brain matter... Horrible!

When, recovering from the shock, we could weep before the body of our friend, we found that he had the famous poem with him. On the last page these words were inscribed:

“Today, in the height of spring, I leave open the cage door to the blue bird.”

Alas, Garcín, how many carry in their brains that very same ailment of thine!

WHITE DOVES AND BROWN HERONS

My cousin Inés was blond as a German girl. We were brought up together from early childhood in the house of our good grandmother, who loved us dearly and had us regard each other as brother and sister, watching over us vigilantly to see that we never quarreled. Adorable little old lady, with her gowns of grand floral patterns and her frizzy hair gathered up like an old marchioness of Boucher!

Inés was a little older than I. Nevertheless, I learned to read before she did; and I understood—I recall it very well—what she recited from memory, mechanically, in a Christmas pageant, wherein she danced and sang before the infant Jesus, the lovely Mary, and Saint Joseph; all to the delight of the simple elders of the family, who laughed with honeyed chuckles, praising the little actress’s talent.

Inés grew. So did I, yet not so fast as she. I had to enter a boarding school—a grim and sorrowful confinement—to devote myself to the dry studies for the baccalaureate, to eat the conventional student fare, and to see no more of the world—my youthful world!—and my home, my grandmother, my cousin, and my cat: an excellent tabby that rubbed affectionately against my legs, covering my black suits with white hairs.

I departed.

There at school my adolescence fully awoke. My voice took on flutelike and husky registers; I reached that awkward season when a boy passes into youth. Then, by some strange phenomenon, instead of worrying over my mathematics teacher—who never succeeded in making me understand Newton’s binomial theorem—I thought, still vaguely and mysteriously, of my cousin Inés.

Then I had profound revelations. I learned many things; among them, that kisses were an exquisite pleasure.

Time passed.

I read Paul and Virginia. A school year drew to a close, and I set off on vacation, swift as an arrow, bound for home. Freedom!

My cousin—good heavens, in so short a time!—had become a woman grown. Before her I felt embarrassed, somewhat grave. Whenever she addressed me, I would smile at her with a foolish grin.

Inés was now fifteen and a half. Her golden tresses, radiant in the sunlight, were a treasure. Fair and lightly flushed with poppy-red, her face was a Murillo-like creation when viewed from the front. At times, contemplating her profile, I thought of a proud Syracusan medallion, a princess’s countenance. Her gown, once short, had lengthened. Her bosom, firm and full, was a hidden, supreme dream; her voice clear and vibrant, her blue pupils ineffable, her mouth full of the fragrance of life and the hue of purple. Wholesome, virginal springtime!

Grandmother received me with open arms. Inés declined to embrace me; she offered me her hand. Thereafter I did not dare invite her to our former games. I felt timid. And yet! She must have felt something of what I felt.

I loved my cousin!

On Sundays Inés went to Mass with Grandmother, very early in the morning.

My bedroom adjoined hers. When the belfries sounded their ringing morning call, I was already awake.

Listening with attentive ear, I caught the rustle of clothes. Through the ajar door I watched the pair depart, conversing aloud. Close past me brushed the frou-frou of my grandmother’s old-fashioned skirts and of Inés’s gown: coquettish, fitted, and to me ever revelatory.

Oh, Eros!

“Inés...”

“...?”

And we were alone beneath the light of a silvery, sweet moon—a glorious moon of the land of Nicaragua!

I told her all that I felt—pleading, stammering, pouring forth my words, now rushed, now held in check, feverish and fearful. Yes, I told her everything: the dull, strange stirrings I experienced beside her, the love, the longing, the sorrowful sleeplessness of desire, my fixed thoughts of her during my musings at school; and like a sacred prayer I repeated that mighty word: love. Oh, she must surely welcome my adoration with joy! We would grow older. We would be husband and wife...

I waited.

The pale celestial radiance illuminated us. The breeze brought warm scents that to my fancy seemed propitious for ardent love. Golden tresses, paradisiacal eyes, glowing, parted lips!

Suddenly, with a pout:

“Look at such nonsense...”

And she scampered like a playful kitten to where our good grandmother was, silently saying her rosaries and prayers.

With the brazen laugh of a mischievous schoolgirl, with the air of a merry madcap:

“Hey, Grandma, he’s already told me...!”

So they knew all along that I ‘must tell...’!

With her laughter she interrupted the prayer of the old woman, who remained pensive, stroking the beads of her rosary. And I, who spied it all from afar, wept—yes, wept bitter tears, the first of my manhood’s disillusions!

The bodily changes occurring within me and the stirrings of my spirit moved me deeply. Good heavens! A dreamer, a budding poet as I believed myself, with down just sprouting on my lip, I felt my head brim with illusions, my lips with verses, while my adolescent soul and body thirsted for love. When would that sovereign hour arrive when a heavenly glance would illuminate the depths of my being, and when the veil of that alluring enigma would be torn asunder?

One day, in bright sunshine, Inés stood in the garden scattering wheat among the shrubs and flowers to those she called her friends: snowy, cooing doves, with white crops and tenderly musical throats. She wore a gown—whenever I have dreamed of her I have seen her in the very same—greyish-blue, with wide sleeves that revealed almost entirely her satiny, alabaster arms; her hair was pinned up and damp, and the soft curls at the nape of her pale, rosy neck were to me like crinkled light. The birds strutted about her, printing upon the dark soil the carmine stars of their feet.

It was hot. I was hidden behind the branches of some jasmine bushes. I devoured her with my eyes. At last she drew near my hiding place—fair cousin! She saw me trembling, my face flushed, in my eyes a bright, strange, caressing flame; and she began to laugh cruelly, terribly. Well then! Oh, that was unbearable! I sprang swiftly before her. Bold, formidable I must have appeared, for she stepped back a pace as though alarmed.

“I love you!”

Then she laughed once more. A dove fluttered to one of her arms. She coaxed it, offering it grains of wheat from between the pearls of her fresh, sensual mouth. I stepped closer. My face was beside hers. The innocent creatures encircled us. An invisible, potent wave of feminine scent dazed my brain. Inés seemed to me a lovely, human dove—white, sublime, and yet full of fire and warmth, a treasure of delights! I spoke no further. I took her head and kissed her on the cheek: a swift kiss, burning with furious passion. Somewhat angered, she took flight. The doves were startled and took wing, beating a muffled flutter of wings above the trembling bushes. Overwhelmed, I stood motionless.

Soon after, I departed for another city. The white, fair dove had not, alas, revealed to my eyes the longed-for paradise of mysterious delight.

Ardent, sacred muse of my soul, the day was bound to come! Elena—graceful, merry Elena—became my new love. Blessed be that mouth which first whispered beside me the ineffable words!

It was yonder, in a city bordering a lake of my homeland—an enchanting lake, dotted with flowering isles and brightly colored birds.

We two were alone, clasping hands, seated upon the ancient jetty beneath which the dark, sea-green water lapped musically. A caressing twilight reigned, one of those that are the delight of tropical lovers. In the opaline sky spread a gentle clarity that faded into shades of deep violet to the east, while brightening to rosy gold on the distant horizon, where the sun’s last slanting rays trembled red and spent. Swayed by desire, my beloved gazed upon me, and our eyes spoke of fervent, strange things. In the depths of our souls an intoxicating harmony sang in unison, like two invisible, divine nightingales.

Rapt, I gazed upon that tender, ardent woman: her chestnut hair which I caressed with my hands, her face the hue of cinnamon and rose, her Cleopatran mouth, her graceful, virginal form; and I listened to her low, very low voice speaking affectionate words to me, so softly that they were meant for me alone, fearful perhaps that the evening wind might carry them off. Fastened upon me, her eyes of Minerva—green eyes, eyes that must ever please poets—flooded me with bliss. Then our gazes wandered across the lake, still filled with faint light. Near the shore a large flock of herons had settled: white herons, brown herons, the kind that when the day grows hot gather on the banks to startle the crocodiles drinking sunlight with wide-open jaws upon the black rocks. Lovely herons! Some dipped their long necks into the ripples or beneath their wings, resembling great patches of living, rosy blossoms, shifting and serene. Now and then one, perched on a single leg, preened its feathers with its beak or stood motionless in sculptural, hieratic stillness; or several took brief flight, sketching against the green-clad shore or across the sky fanciful patterns, like flocks of cranes upon a Chinese parasol.

Beside my beloved, I fancied that from that realm on high the herons would bring me many unfamiliar, dreamy verses. The white herons seemed to me purer and more voluptuous, possessing the dove’s purity and the swan’s voluptuous grace; elegant, with their royal necks resembling those of the English gentlewomen who, beside curly-haired pages, appear in that painting where Shakespeare recites at the court of London. Their delicate, snowy wings evoke languid bridal dreams, all of them—as a poet well says—like figures carved in jasper.

Ah, but the others held something still more enchanting for me! My Elena seemed akin to them, with her cinnamon-and-rose complexion, proud and graceful.

The sun was already sinking, trailing all the opulent purple of an Eastern king. Tenderly I had wooed my beloved with vows and sweet, warm phrases, and together we continued in a languid duet of immense passion. Hitherto we had been two dreaming lovers, mystically consecrated to one another.

Suddenly, as though drawn by a secret power, in an inexplicable moment, we kissed upon the mouth, all trembling, with a kiss that to me was most sacred and supreme: the first kiss received from woman’s lips. Oh, Solomon, biblical and royal poet, thou hast said it as none other: Mel et lac sub lingua tua!

Ah, my adorable, my beautiful, my darling brown heron! Within those memories that form the highest and most sublime sanctuary of my soul, thou possessest an immortal light.

For thou didst reveal to me the secret of divine delights in the ineffable first moment of love.