“Write to me if the child should fall ill,” entreated the latter with fatherly anxiety, his eyes filling with tears.
“Have no fear, Señor Joaquin. Come, come, you must not give way like this. There is no illness to be feared there. Good-by, Mendoya; good-by, Santián. Thanks! thanks! Señor Governor, on my return I shall claim those bottles of Pedro Jimenez. Don’t pretend you have forgotten them! Lucía, you had better get in now, the train will start immediately and ladies cannot——”
And with a polite gesture he assisted the bride to mount the steps, lifting her lightly by the waist. He then sprang up himself, scarcely touching the step, after throwing away his half-smoked cigar. The iron monster was already in motion when he entered the compartment and closed the door behind him. The measured movement gradually grew more rapid and the entire train passed before the party on the platform, leaving on their sight a confused whirl of lines, colors, numbers, and rapid glances from the passengers looking out at every window. For some moments longer Lucía’s face could be distinguished, agitated and bathed in tears, the flutter of her handkerchief could be seen, and her voice heard saying:
“Good-by, papa. Father Urtazu, good-by, good-by. Rosario, Carmen, adieu.”
Then all was lost in the distance, the course of the scaly serpent could be traced only by a dark line, then by a blurred trail of thick smoke that soon also vanished into space. Beyond the platform, now strangely silent, shone the cloudless sky, of a steely blue, interminable fields stretched monotonously far into the distance, the rails showed like wrinkles on the dry face of the earth. A great silence rested upon the railway station. The wedding party had remained motionless, as if overwhelmed by the shock of parting. The friends of the bridegroom were the first to recover themselves and to make a move to depart. They bade good-by to the father of the bride with hasty hand-shakings and trivial society phrases, somewhat carelessly worded, as if addressed by a superior to an inferior, and then, in a body, took the road for the city, once more indulging in the jests and laughter interrupted by the departure of the train.
The retinue of the bride, on their side, began to recover themselves also, and after a sigh or two, after wiping their eyes with their handkerchiefs, and in some instances even with the back of the hand, the group of black human ants set itself in motion to leave the platform. The irresistible force of circumstances drew them back to real life.
The father of the bride, with a shake of his head and an eloquent shrug of resignation, himself led the way. Beside him walked the Jesuit who stretched his short stature to its utmost height in order to converse with his companion, without succeeding, notwithstanding his laudable efforts, in raising the circle of his tonsure above the athletic shoulders of the afflicted old man.
“Come, come, Señor Joaquin,” said Father Urtazu, “a fine time you chose to wear that Good Friday face! One would suppose the child had been carried off by force or that the marriage was not according to your taste! Be reasonable. Was it not yourself, unhappy man, who arranged the match? What is all this grieving about, then?”
“If one could only be certain of the result in all one does,” said Señor Joaquin, in a choking voice, slowly moving his bull-like neck.
“It is too late for those reflections now. But we were in such haste—such haste! that I don’t know what those white hairs and all the years we carry on our shoulders were for. We were just like the little boys in my class when I promise to tell them a story, and they are ready to jump out of their skins with impatience. By the faith of Alfonso, one might have thought you were the bride yourself—no, not that, for the deuce a hurry the bride was in——”