María

I

I was still a mere boy when sent away from home to study in ⸻ College, founded a few years before in Bogotá, and then well known all through Colombia. The night before my departure, after the family gathering in the evening, one of my sisters came into my room, and, without saying a single word, because she could not trust her voice, cut off a lock of my hair; when she had gone, I found my neck wet with her tears.

I fell asleep sorrowful, filled with a vague foreboding of coming trouble. That lock of hair taken from a boy’s head; that precaution of love against death, even in the presence of abounding life, caused my thoughts to wander all night about those scenes where I had passed, without knowing it, the happiest hours of my life.

The next morning, my father had to loosen my mother’s arms from my neck. My sisters tried to kiss away my tears. María quietly waited her turn, and stammering out a goodbye, touched her blushing cheek to mine, chilled by the first feeling of sorrow.