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He gave him some instructions with regard to theroad, tied his bag on his shoulders in a mannerwhich would not annoy him as he walked, and,breaking off short, as though he feared that heshould be affected, he bade him farewell.
The boy had barely time to kiss him on one arm.
The other men, too, who had treated him so harshly, seemed to feel a little pity at the sight ofhim left thus alone, and they made signs offarewell to him as they moved away.
And he returned the salute with his hand, stoodwatching the convoy until it was lost to sight inthe red dust of the plain, and then set out sadlyon his road.
One thing, on the other hand, comforted him alittle from the first.
After all those days of travel across that endlessplain, which was forever the same, he saw beforehim a chain of mountains very high and blue, withwhite summits, which reminded him of the Alps, andgave him the feeling of having drawn near to hisown country once more.
They were the Andes, the dorsal spine of theAmerican continent, that immense chain whichextends from Tierra del Fuego to the glacial seaof the Arctic Pole, through a hundred and tendegrees of latitude.
And he was also comforted by the fact that the airseemed to him to grow constantly warmer, and thishappened, because, in ascending towards the north,he was slowly approaching the tropics.
At great distances apart there were tiny groups ofhouses with a petty shop, and he bought somethingto eat.
He encountered men on horseback, every now andthen he saw women and children seated on theground, motionless and grave, with faces entirelynew to him, of an earthen hue, with oblique eyesand prominent cheekbones, who looked at him intently, and accompanied him with their gaze,turning their head slowly like automatons.
They were Indians.
The first day he walked as long as his strengthwould permit, and slept under a tree.
On the second day he made considerably lessprogress, and with less spirit.
His shoes were dilapidated, his feet wounded, hisstomach weakened by bad food.
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Towards evening he began to be alarmed.
He had heard, in Italy, that in this land therewere serpents, he fancied that he heard themcrawling, he halted, then set out on a run, andwith cold chills in all his bones.
At times he was seized with a profound pity forhimself, and he wept silently as he walked.
Then he thought, oh, how much my mother wouldsuffer if she knew that I am afraid.
And this thought restored his courage.
Then, in order to distract his thoughts from fear,he meditated much of her.
He recalled to mind her words when she had set outfrom Genoa, and the movement with which she hadarranged the coverlet beneath his chin when he wasin bed, and when he was a baby, for every timethat she took him in her arms, she said to him,stay here a little while with me, and thus sheremained for a long time, with her head resting onhis, thinking, thinking.
And he said to himself, shall I see thee again,dear mother?
Shall I arrive at the end of my journey, mymother?
And he walked on and on, among strange trees, vastplantations of sugarcane, and fields without end,always with those blue mountains in front of him,which cut the sky with their exceedingly loftycrests.
Four days, five days, a week, passed.
His strength was rapidly declining, his feet werebleeding.
Finally, one evening at sunset, they said to him.
Tucuman is fifty miles from here.
He uttered a cry of joy, and hastened his steps,as though he had, in that moment, regained all hislost vigour.
But it was a brief illusion.
His forces suddenly abandoned him, and he fellupon the brink of a ditch, exhausted.
But his heart was beating with content.
The heaven, thickly sewn with the most brilliantstars, had never seemed so beautiful to him.
He contemplated it, as he lay stretched out on thegrass to sleep, and thought that, perhaps, at thatvery moment,
his mother was gazing at him.
And he said.
Oh my mother, where art thou?
What art thou doing at this moment?
Dost thou think of thy son?
Dost thou think of thy Marco, who is so near tothee?
Poor Marco! If he could have seen in what a casehis mother was at that moment,
he would have made a superhuman effort to proceedon his way, and to reach her a few hours earlier.
She was ill in bed, in a ground-floor room of alordly mansion, where dwelt the entire Mequine'sfamily.
The latter had become very fond of her, and hadhelped her a great deal.
The poor woman had already been ailing when theengineer Mequines had been obliged unexpectedly
to set out far from Buenos Aires, and she had notbenefited at all by the fine air of Cordova.
But then, the fact that she had received noresponse to her letters from her husband,
nor from her cousin, the presentiment, alwayslively, of some great misfortune,
the continual anxiety in which she had lived,between the parting and staying,
expecting every day some bad news, had caused herto grow worse out of all proportion.
Finally, a very serious malady had declareditself, a strangled internal rupture.
She had not risen from her bed for a fortnight. Asurgical operation was necessary to save her
life. And at precisely the moment when Marco wasapostrophizing her, the master and mistress
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of the house were standing beside her bed, arguingwith her, with great gentleness,
to persuade her to allow herself to be operatedon, and she was persisting in her refusal,
and weeping. A good physician of Tucumán had comein vain a week before.
No, my dear master, she said, do not count uponit, I have not the strength to resist,
I should die under the surgeon's knife. It isbetter to allow me to die thus. I no longer cling
to life. All is at an end for me. It is better todie before learning what has happened to my
family. And her master and mistress opposed, andsaid that she must take courage, that she
would receive a reply to the last letters, whichhad been sent directly to Genoa, that she must
allow the operation to be performed, that it mustbe done for the sake of her family.
But this suggestion of her children only aggravated her profound discouragement,
which had for a long time prostrated her, withincreasing anguish. At these words she burst
into tears. Oh my sons! my sons, she exclaimed, wringing her hands, perhaps they are no longer
alive. It is better that I should die also. Ithank you, my good master and mistress,
I thank you for my heart. But it is better that Ishould die. At all events, I am certain that I
shall not be cured by this operation. Thanks forall your care, my good master and mistress.
It is useless for the doctor to come again aftertomorrow. I wish to die. It is my fate to die
here. I have decided. And they began again toconsole her, and to repeat, don't say that,
and to take her hand and beseech her. But sheclosed her eyes then in exhaustion, and fell into
a doze, so that she appeared to be dead. And hermaster and mistress remained there a little while,
by the faint light of a taper, watching with greatcompassion that admirable mother, who,
for the sake of saving her family, had come to diesix thousand miles from her country,
to die after having toiled so hard, poor woman!And she was so honest, so good, so unfortunate.
Early on the morning of the following day, Marco,bent and limping, with his bag on his back,
entered the city of Tucumán, one of the youngestand most flourishing towns of the Argentine
Republic. It seemed to him that he beheld again Cordova, Rosario, Buenos Aires, there were the
same straight and extremely long streets, the samelow white houses, but on every hand there
was a new and magnificent vegetation, a perfumedair, a marvellous light, a sky limpid andprofound,
such as he had never seen even in Italy. As headvanced through the streets, he experienced
once more the feverish agitation which had seizedon him at Buenos Aires, he stared at the
windows and doors of all the houses, he stared atall the women who passed him, with an anxious
hope that he might meet his mother, he would haveliked to question every one, but did not
dare to stop anyone. All the people who werestanding at their doors turned to gaze after the
poor, tattered, dusty lad, who showed that he hadcome from afar. And he was seeking, among all
these people, a countenance which should inspirehim with confidence, in order to direct to its
owner that tremendous query, when his eyes fellupon the sign of an innopawn which was inscribed
an Italian name. Inside were a man with spectacles, and two women. He approached the doorslowly,
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and summoning up a resolute spirit, he inquired.
''Can you tell me, senor, where the family Meequines is?''
''The engineer Meequines?'' asked the innkeeper inhis turn.
''The engineer Meequines,'' replied the lad in athread of a voice.
''The Meequines family is not in Tucumán,''replied the innkeeper.
A cry of desperate pain, like that of one who hasbeen stabbed, formed an echo to these words.
The innkeeper and the women rose, and someneighbours ran up.
''What's the matter? What ails you, my boy?'' saidthe innkeeper, drawing him into the shop
and making him sit down. ''The deuce. There's noreason for despairing. The Meequines family is
not here, but at a little distance off, a fewhours from Tucumán.''
''Where? Where?'' shrieked Marco, springing uplike one restored to life.
''Fifteen miles from here,'' continued the man, ''on the river at Saladillo,
in a place where a big sugar factory is beingbuilt, and a cluster of houses,
senor Meequines's house is there, everyone knowsit, you can reach it in a few hours.''
''I was there a month ago,'' said a youth, who hadhastened up at the cry.
Marco stared at him with wide-open eyes, and askedhim hastily, turning pale as he did so,
''Did you see the servant of senor Meequines, theItalian?''
''The Genoese? Yes, I saw her.''
Marco burst into a convulsive sob, which was halfa laugh and half a sob.
Then, with a burst of violent resolution, ''Whichway am I to go?
Quick, the road. I shall set out instantly, showme the way.''
''But it is a day's march,'' they all told him, inone breath.
''You are weary, you should rest, you can set outto-morrow.''
''Impossible! Impossible!'' replied the lad. ''Tell me the way, I will not wait another
instant, I shall set out at once, were I to die onthe road.''
On perceiving him so inflexible, they no longeropposed him.
''May God accompany you,'' they said to him. ''Look out for the path through the forest.
A fair journey to you, little Italian.''
A man accompanied him outside of the town, pointedout to him the road,
gave him some counsel, and stood still to watchhim start. At the expiration of a few minutes,
the lad disappeared, limping, with his bag on hisshoulders,
behind the thick trees which lined the road.
