The Guayrá was still covered in a thick mist at that early hour,

“Good morning, Maceta.”

“Good morning, the tapererepurá. I want you to take this message to Villa Rica for me.”

The man turned his gaze northeast, saluted Maceta, and disappeared, running and glimmering, into the blue of the mist. Maceta stood contemplating the invincible green of the pastureland. When he felt that the green had entered his eyes, he closed them, as though in an attempt to crush that color between his eyelids. Ruiz had given him a household remedy for his stinging eyes: to look at the pastureland without blinking, until tears sprang into them.

*

Father Maceta was learned. He had spent long years at his studies and been educated in the arts of very ancient Italian colleges. He had come to the Guayrá to teach and to civilize. Father Ruiz, who was from Peru, by contrast always felt a little ashamed of not having studied in any concerted way. He had spent years trying to read, to access philosophy via his eyes. But always concluding that he could not waste too much time going down this route. He loved the Scriptures but perceived God with a clarity so brazen and vigorous that the life of study seemed to him a kind of detour.