I was on my way to Uxmal, when through some egregious stupidity of the driver I was obliged to put up here for the night. There was of course no inn, and I found a bed at a poor widow’s, who took in casual travellers like myself. The accommodation was of the scantiest: a hammock, a small table, a chair or two, was all the furniture of a room which was at the same time the kitchen, the parlour, and the sleeping chamber. The widow apologised for having nothing better to offer, but it was easy to guess from her noble manners and appearance, that she had known better days. I watched my dinner being prepared; the table neatly laid, everything so scrupulously clean, that I could have found it in my heart to be indulgent had the cooking been execrable, but all was as good and nice as would have satisfied the most fastidious palate. Two lovely maidens helped their mother and served at table; my eyes sought the younger, whose transparent skin, pearly teeth, hair of raven wing’s blackness, magnificent, languid eyes, fairy-like form moving over the ground with an indescribable undulating movement, moved me body and soul every time she gazed in my direction. Her look of innocence and simplicity added to the charm which seemed to emanate from her whole person, accepting with child-like pleasure my open admiration, while a soft blush spread over her countenance as she met my enraptured gaze. Their story was this:
The hacienda had been burnt down, her husband massacred, and she had been obliged to fly with her little ones to escape a worse fate, to find on their return the place a heap of ruins. She told of their lone, joyless life, of a still darker future, and tears coursed down her cheeks furrowed by care and privations rather than age.
I was young, impulsive, I wished I were rich. Why should I not.... In a moment, ancient monuments, the world, my possible career, all was forgotten in face of these tearful countenances and their undeserved misfortune. Why not accept the love, the happiness, which were offered to me? And how delightful to relieve their misery, to feel that a whole family would be made happy and comfortable by me and through me! All this and a great deal more I expressed, and was amply repaid by the angelic smile of the young girl, and the mother’s grateful acknowledgments. Night, however, brought calm to my disturbed imagination, and I resolved on a speedy flight, as the only means of escape from a too fascinating but dangerous position. The next day I announced my departure, and I never saw her again. And now, after so many years, I was back in the same place again. I sought the house, to find that my youthful love-dream was no longer here, but had gone to live somewhere in a large city. I came away sad at heart, disappointed; yet better so. In two-and-twenty years, Time, in all probability, had not spared her, more than he had me.