The negrine propensity to frequent explosions of
inconsequent laughter was not, of course, to be expected in such a
sober-minded person; but he was, I think, a little too sedate for a
black, for, although his face would shine on warm days like polished
ebony, it did not smile. Everyone in the house conspired to keep up
the fiction of Nepomucino's importance; they had, in fact, conspired
so long and so well, that it had very nearly ceased to be a fiction.
Everybody addressed him with grave respect. Not a syllable of his long
name was ever omitted--what the consequences of calling him Nepo, or
Cino, or Cinito, the affectionate diminutive, would have been I am
unable to say, since I never had the courage to try the experiment.
It often amused me to hear Dona Mercedes calling to him from the house,
and throwing the whole emphasis on the last syllable in a long, piercing
crescendo: "Ne--po--mu--ci--no--o." Sometimes, when I sat in the
orchard, he would come, and, placing himself before me, discourse
gravely about things in general, clipping his words and substituting
r for l in the negro fashion, which made it hard for me to repress a
smile. After winding up with a few appropriate moral reflections he
would finish with the remark: "For though I am black on the surface,
senor, my heart is white"; and then he would impressively lay one of
his old crooked fingers on the part where the physiological curiosity
was supposed to be.
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