"How easy it is to give advice!" returned Pepita, becoming a little calmer. "How hard for me to follow it, when there is a fierce and unchained tempest, as it were, raging in my soul! I am afraid I shall go mad."

"The advice I give you is for your own good. Let Don Luis depart.

Absence is a great remedy for the malady of love. In giving himself up to his studies, and consecrating himself to the service of the altar, he will be cured of his pa.s.sion. When he is far away, you will recover your serenity by degrees, and will preserve in your memory only a grateful and melancholy recollection of him that will do you no harm. It will be like a beautiful poem whose music will harmonize your existence. Even if all your desires could be fulfilled--earthly love lasts, after all, but a short time. The delight the imagination antic.i.p.ates in its enjoyment--what is it in comparison with the bitter dregs that remain behind, when the cup has been drained to the bottom? How much better is it that your love, hardly yet contaminated, hardly despoiled of its purity, should be dissipated, and exhale itself now, rising up to heaven like a cloud of incense, than that, after it is once satisfied, it should perish through satiety! Have the courage to put away from your lips the cup while you have hardly tasted of its contents. Make of them a libation and an offering to the Divine Redeemer. He will give you, in exchange, the draught he offered to the Samaritan--a draught that does not satiate, that quenches the thirst, and that produces eternal life."

"How good you are, father! Your holy words lend me courage. I will control myself; I will conquer myself. It would be shameful--would it not?--that Don Luis should be able to control and conquer himself, and that I should not be able to do so? Let him depart. He is going away the day after to-morrow; let him go with G.o.d's blessing. See his card. He was here with his father to take leave of me, and I would not receive him. I do not even want to preserve the poetical remembrance of him of which you speak. This love has been a nightmare; I will cast it away from me."

"Good! very good! It is thus that I want to see you--energetic, courageous."

"Ah, father, G.o.d has cast down my pride with this blow. I was insolent in my arrogance, and the scorn of this man was necessary to my self-abas.e.m.e.nt. Could I be more humbled or more resigned than I am now?

Don Luis is right: I am not worthy of him. However great the efforts I might make, I could not succeed in elevating myself to him and comprehending him, in putting my spirit into perfect communication with his. I am a rude country girl, unlearned, uncultured; and he--there is no science he does not understand, no secret of which he is ignorant, no region of the intellectual world, however exalted, to which he may not soar. Thither on the wings of his genius does he mount; and me he leaves behind in this lower sphere, poor, ignorant woman that I am, incapable of following him even in my hopes or with my aspirations."

"But, Pepita, for Heaven's sake don't say such things, or think them!

Don Luis does not scorn you because you are ignorant, or because you are incapable of comprehending him, or for any other of those absurd reasons that you are stringing together. He goes away because he must fulfill his obligation toward G.o.d; and you should rejoice that he is going away, for you will then forget your love for him, and G.o.d will reward you for the sacrifice you make."

Pepita, who had left off crying, and had dried her tears with her handkerchief, answered quietly:

"Very well, father; I shall be very glad of it; I am almost glad now that he is going away. I long for to-morrow to pa.s.s, and for the time to come when Antonona shall say to me on wakening, 'Don Luis is gone.' You shall see then how peace and serenity will spring up again in my heart."

"G.o.d grant it may be so!" said the reverend vicar; and, convinced that he had wrought a miracle and almost cured Pepita's malady, he took leave of her and went home, unable to repress a certain feeling of vanity at the thought of the influence he had exercised over the n.o.ble spirit of this charming woman.

Pepita, who had risen as the reverend vicar was about to take his leave, after she had closed the door, stood for a moment immovable in the middle of the room, her gaze fixed on s.p.a.ce, her eyes tearless. A poet or an artist, seeing her thus, would have been reminded of Ariadne, as Catullus describes her, after Theseus has abandoned her on the island of Naxos. All at once, as if she had but just succeeded in untying the knot of a cord that was strangling her, Pepita broke into heart-rending sobs, let loose a torrent of tears, and threw herself down on the tiled floor of her apartment. There, her face buried in her hands, her hair unbound, her dress disordered, she continued to sigh and moan.

She might have remained thus for an indefinite time if Antonona had not come to her. Antonona had heard her sobs from without and hurried to her apartment. When she saw her mistress extended on the floor, Antonona gave way to a thousand extravagant expressions of fury.

"Here's a pretty sight!" she cried; "that sneak, that blackguard, that old fool, what a way he has to console his friends! I shouldn't wonder if he has committed some piece of barbarity--given a couple of kicks to this poor child, perhaps; and now I suppose he has gone back to the church to get everything ready to sing the funeral chant, and sprinkle her with hyssop, and bury her out of sight without more ado."

Antonona was about forty, and a hard worker--energetic, and stronger than many a laborer. She often lifted up, with scarcely more than the strength of her hand, a skin of oil or of wine, weighing nearly ninety pounds, and placed it on the back of a mule, or carried a bag of wheat up to the garret where the grain was kept. Although Pepita was not a feather, Antonona now lifted her up in her arms from the floor as if she had been one, and placed her carefully on the sofa, as though she were some delicate and precious piece of porcelain that she feared to break.

"What is the meaning of all this?" asked Antonona. "I wager anything that drone of a vicar has been preaching you a sermon as bitter as aloes, and has left you now with your heart torn to pieces with grief."

Pepita continued to weep and sob without answering.

"Come, leave off crying, and tell me what is the matter. What has the vicar said to you?"

"He said nothing that could offend me," finally answered Pepita.

Then, seeing that Antonona was waiting anxiously to hear her speak, and feeling the need of unburdening herself to some one who could sympathize more fully with her, and, humanly speaking, could better comprehend her than the vicar, Pepita spoke as follows:

"The reverend vicar has admonished me gently to repent of my sins; to allow Don Luis to go away; to rejoice at his departure; to forget him. I have said yes to everything; I have promised him to rejoice at Don Luis's departure; I have tried to forget him, and even to hate him. But look you, Antonona, I can not; it is an undertaking superior to my strength. While the vicar was here, I thought I had strength for everything; but no sooner had he gone than, as if G.o.d had let go his hold of me, I lost my courage, and fell, crushed with sorrow, on the floor. I had dreamed of a happy life at the side of the man I love; I already saw myself elevated to him by the miraculous power of love; my poor mind in perfect communion with his sublime intellect; my will one with his; both thinking the same thought; our hearts beating in unison.

And now G.o.d has taken him away from me, and I am left alone, without hope or consolation. Is not this frightful? The arguments of the reverend vicar are just and full of wisdom; for the time, they convinced me. But he has gone away, and all those arguments now seem to me worthless--a tissue of words, lies, entanglements, and sophistries. I love Don Luis, and this argument is more powerful than all other arguments put together. And if he loves me in return, why does he not leave everything and come to me, break the vows he has taken, and renounce the obligations he has contracted? I did not know what love was; now I know; there is nothing stronger on earth or in heaven. What would I not do for Don Luis? And he--he does nothing for me! Perhaps he does not love me. No; Don Luis does not love me. I have deceived myself; I was blinded by vanity. If Don Luis loved me, he would sacrifice his plans, his vows, his fame, his aspirations to be a saint and a light of the Church, he would sacrifice all to me. G.o.d forgive me, what I am about to say is horrible, but I feel it here in the depths of my heart, it burns here in my fevered brow: for him I would give even the salvation of my soul!"

"Holy Virgin!" exclaimed Antonona.

"It is true; may our blessed Lady of Sorrows pardon me--I am mad--I know not what I say. I blaspheme!"

"Yes, child; you are talking indeed a little naughtily. Heaven help us!

To think how this c.o.x-comb of a theologian has turned your head! Well, if I were in your place, I would not take Heaven to task, which is in no wise to blame, but this jackanapes of a collegian, and I would have it out with him, or never again call myself Pepita Ximenez. I should like to go hunt him up, and bring him here to you by the ear, and make him go down on his knees before you, and beg your pardon."

"No, Antonona; I see that my madness is contagious, and that you are raving, too. There is, in fact, nothing left for me to do but what the reverend vicar advises. And I will do it, even though it should cost me my life. If I die for him, he will then love me; he will cherish my image in his memory, my love in his heart; and G.o.d, who is so good, will permit me to see him again in heaven with the eyes of the soul, and will let our spirits mingle together and love each other there."

Antonona, although of a rugged nature, and not at all sentimental, on hearing these words felt the tears start to her eyes.

"Good gracious, child!" she said; "do you want to make me take out my handkerchief and begin to bellow like a calf? Calm yourself, and don't talk about dying, even in jest. I can see that your nerves are very much excited. Shan't I bring you a cup of linden tea?"

"No, thanks; leave me; you see how calm I am now."

"I shall close the window, then, to see if you can sleep. How should you feel well, when you have not slept for days? The devil take that same Don Luis, with his fancy for making himself a priest! A nice price you are paying for it!"

Pepita had closed her eyes; she was calm and silent, weary now of her colloquy with Antonona.

The latter, either thinking she was asleep, or hoping her to be so, bent over Pepita, imprinted a kiss softly and slowly on her white forehead, smoothed oat the folds of her dress, arranged the windows so as to leave the room in semi-obscurity, and went out on tiptoe, closing the door behind her without making the slightest noise.

While these things were taking place at the house of Pepita, Don Luis de Vargas in his was neither happier nor more tranquil than was she herself.

His father, who scarcely let a day pa.s.s without riding out into the country, had to-day wished to take Don Luis with him; but, with the pretext of a headache, he had excused himself, and Don Pedro had gone without him. Don Luis had spent the whole morning alone, delivered up to his melancholy thoughts, and continuing firm as a rock in his resolution of blotting from his soul the image of Pepita, and of consecrating himself wholly to G.o.d.

Let it not be supposed, however, that he did not love the young widow.

We have already, in his letters, seen the proof of the vehemence of his pa.s.sion for her, but he continued his efforts to curb it by means of the devout sentiments and elevated reflections of which he has given us in his letters so extended a specimen, and of which we may here omit a repet.i.tion, in order not to appear prolix.

Perhaps, if we examine into this matter closely, we shall find that the reasons which militated in the breast of Don Luis against his love for Pepita were not only his vow to himself, which, though unconfirmed, was binding in his eyes, or the love of G.o.d, or respect for his father, whose rival he did not wish to be, or, finally, the vocation which he felt himself to have for the priesthood. There were other reasons of a more doubtful character than these.

Don Luis was stubborn; he was obstinate; he had that quality of soul which, well directed, const.i.tutes what is called firmness of character, and there was nothing that lowered him more in his own eyes than to feel himself obliged to change his opinions or his conduct. The purpose of his life, a purpose which he had declared and maintained on all occasions, his moral ideal, in a word, was that of an aspirant to holiness, of a man consecrated to G.o.d, of one imbued with the sublimest religious teachings. All this could not fall to earth, as it would fall, if he allowed himself to be carried away by his love for Pepita, without great discredit. Although the price, indeed, was in this case incomparably higher, yet Don Luis felt that, should he yield to his pa.s.sion, he would be following the example of Esau, selling his birthright and bringing opprobrium on his name.

Men, as a rule, allow themselves to be the plaything of circ.u.mstances; they let themselves be carried along by the current of events, instead of devoting all their energies to one single aim. We do not choose our part in life, but accept and play the part allotted us, that which blind fortune a.s.signs to us. The profession, the political faith, the entire life of many men depend on chance circ.u.mstances, on what is fortuitous, on the caprice and the unexpected turns of fate.

Against all this the pride of Don Luis rebelled with t.i.tanic power. What would be thought of him, and above all, what would he think of himself if the ideal of his life, the new man that he had created in his soul, if all his plans of virtue, of honor, and even of holy ambition, should vanish in an instant, should melt away in the warmth of a glance, at the fugitive flame of a pair of beautiful eyes, as the h.o.a.r-frost melts in the yet mild ray of the morning sun?

These and other reasons of a like egotistic nature also militated, in the breast of Don Luis, side by side with more weighty and legitimate ones, against the widow; but every argument clothed itself in the same religious garb, so that Don Luis himself was unable to recognize and distinguish between them, believing to be the love of G.o.d not only what was in truth the love of G.o.d, but also self-love. He recalled to mind, for instance, the examples of many saints who had resisted greater temptations than his, and he did not wish to be less than they. And he recalled to mind, above all, the notable firmness of St. Chrysostom, who was able to disregard the caresses of a tender and good mother, and her tears and gentle entreaties, and all the eloquent and touching words she spoke to him, in the very room where he was born, to the end that he might not abandon her and become a priest. And, after reflecting on this, Don Luis could not tolerate in himself the weakness of being unable to scorn the entreaties of a woman who was a stranger to him, whom he had known for so short a time, and of still wavering between his duty and the attractions of one who was, perhaps, after all, rather than enamored of him, merely a coquette.

Don Luis then reflected on the supreme elevation of the sacerdotal dignity to which he was called, regarding it in his thoughts as superior to all the dignities and unsatisfying honors of the world; since it was founded, neither by any mortal man, nor by the caprice of the variable and servile populace, nor by the irruption or invasion of barbarians, nor by the violence of rebellious armies urged on by greed, nor by angel nor archangel, nor by any created power, but by the Paraclete himself.

How, for a motive so unworthy, for a mere woman, for a tear or two, feigned, perhaps, scorn that august dignity, that authority that was not conceded by G.o.d even to the archangels nearest to his throne? How should he descend to be confounded among the obscure people, and become one of the flock--he who had dreamed of being the shepherd, tying and untying on earth what G.o.d should tie and untie in heaven, pardoning sins, regenerating the people by water and by the spirit, teaching them in the name of an infallible authority, p.r.o.nouncing judgments that should be ratified and confirmed by the Lord of the heavens--he, the instructor and the minister in tremendous mysteries inscrutable by human reason, calling down from heaven, not, like Elias, the flame that consumes the victim, but the Holy Spirit, the Word made flesh, the river of grace that purifies hearts and makes them clean like unalloyed gold?

When Don Luis let his mind dwell on these thoughts, his spirit took wings and soared up above the clouds into the empyrean, and poor Pepita Ximenez remained below, far away, and hardly within sight.

But the wings of his imagination soon drooped, and the spirit of Don Luis touched earth again. Again he saw Pepita, so graceful, so young, so ingenuous, and so enamored. Pepita combated in his soul his firmest and most deep-seated resolutions, and Don Luis feared that in the end she would put them all to flight.

In this way was Don Luis allowing himself to be tormented by opposing thoughts, that made war on each other, when Currito, without asking leave or license, entered his room.

Currito, who had held his cousin in very slight esteem so long as he was only a student of theology, now regarded him with wonder and veneration, looking upon him, from the moment when he had seen him manage Lucero so skillfully, as something more than human.

To know theology, and to be ignorant of horsemanship, was something unflattering to Don Luis in the eyes of Currito; but when Currito saw that, in addition to his learning, and to all those other matters of which he himself knew nothing, although he supposed them to be difficult and perplexing, Don Luis knew, besides, how to keep his seat so admirably on the back of a fiery horse, his veneration and his affection for his cousin knew no bounds. Currito was an idler, a good-for-nothing, a very block of wood, but he had an affectionate and loyal heart.

To Don Luis, who was the idol of Currito, happened what happens to all superior natures when inferior persons take a liking to them. Don Luis permitted himself to be loved, that is to say, he was governed despotically by Currito in matters of little importance. And, as for men like Don Luis there are hardly any matters of importance in common daily life, the result was that Don Luis was led about by Currito like a little dog.