El asedio / José Antonio Ramos Sucre

The Siege

The beloved stepped onto the balcony, after hearing the password.
     The morning clears its jubilant face, shaking off the stupor of sleep, and turns drops of water, hanging from her hair, into a living garland of campaniles.
     The old man disapproves of his daughter’s loves and he watches her steps. He conserves the malice of his youth, when he spied, from the orchestra, the court’s leisure in gardens disciplined by art.
     He owes the security of his extreme days to the mercy of an ecclesiastical magnate. He lives near the countryside’s murmurs, noticing the chimeras of distance, the whims of air and light. He conjures from the heart of sensible instruments, to sink and die, light harmonies.
     He scolds his daughter against the detours and assaults of a young man, insinuating hunter. He is an officer of free habits and privileged birth.
     The old man witnesses once more the failure of his authority.
     The girl executes on the piano the aria of the nightingale in love, a passage from an old music, of pastoral inspiration.



Las formas del fuego (1929)




{ José Antonio Ramos Sucre, Obra completa, Caracas: Biblioteca Ayacucho, 1989 }