The stable was only a short distance from the house, a building of concrete blocks with a tin roof. The light entered obliquely through a skylight, skeins of garlic were hung here and there to keep out the bats, and the air smelled of bran and urine. One of the horses snorted when he became aware of the boy. He went into the stall of a black mare and saddled her.
Once in the saddle he ceased being his father’s son, to become a warrior. He trotted out along the dirt lane, and rode toward the mountains that surrounded the city. Barefoot children, washerwomen, beggars and drunks watched him go by — envy, hatred, desire, admiration. Soon the huts had been left behind, and he began to climb a path among the trees. The far-off noise of traffic on the highway was a hostile sound. It was the road of the white man. The red sun went behind the clouds. When he got to the top he pulled on the reins and stood up in the stirrups to look around him. Then he went at a gallop toward the gap crossed by the ancient aqueduct, for from there he could, without being seen, watch the winding highway below.