Part 25 (1/2)
”That is an opinion, like any other. The world may hold you to be infallible. I do not. I am far from believing that from your judgments there is no appeal to G.o.d.”
”But is what you say true? But do you persist in your purpose, after my refusal? You respect nothing, you are a monster, a bandit.”
”I am a man.”
”A wretch! Let us end this at once. I refuse to give my daughter to you; I refuse her to you!”
”I will take her then! I shall take only what is mine.”
”Leave my presence!” exclaimed Dona Perfecta, rising suddenly to her feet. ”c.o.xcomb, do you suppose that my daughter thinks of you?”
”She loves me, as I love her.”
”It is a lie! It is a lie!”
”She herself has told me so. Excuse me if, on this point, I put more faith in her words than in her mother's.”
”How could she have told you so, when you have not seen her for several days?”
”I saw her last night, and she swore to me before the crucifix in the chapel that she would be my wife.”
”Oh, scandal; oh, libertinism! But what is this? My G.o.d, what a disgrace!” exclaimed Dona Perfecta, pressing her head again between her hands and walking up and down the room. ”Rosario left her room last night?”
”She left it to see me. It was time.”
”What vile conduct is yours! You have acted like a thief; you have acted like a vulgar seducer!”
”I have acted in accordance with the teachings of your school. My intention was good.”
”And she came down stairs! Ah, I suspected it! This morning at daybreak I surprised her, dressed, in her room. She told me she had gone out, I don't know for what. You were the real criminal, then. This is a disgrace! Pepe, I expected any thing from you rather than an outrage like this. Every thing is at an end! Go away! You are dead to me. I forgive you, provided you go away. I will not say a word about this to your father. What horrible selfishness! No, there is no love in you. You do not love my daughter!”
”G.o.d knows that I love her, and that is sufficient for me.”
”Be silent, blasphemer! and don't take the name of G.o.d upon your lips!”
exclaimed Dona Perfecta. ”In the name of G.o.d, whom I can invoke, for I believe in him, I tell you that my daughter will never be your wife. My daughter will be saved, Pepe; my daughter shall not be condemned to a living h.e.l.l, for a union with you would be a h.e.l.l!”
”Rosario will be my wife,” repeated the mathematician, with pathetic calmness.
The pious lady was still more exasperated by her nephew's calm energy.
In a broken voice she said:
”Don't suppose that your threats terrify me. I know what I am saying.
What! are a home and a family to be outraged like this? Are human and divine authority to be trampled under foot in this way?”
”I will trample every thing under foot,” said the engineer, beginning to lose his composure and speaking with some agitation.
”You will trample every thing under foot! Ah! it is easy to see that you are a barbarian, a savage, a man who lives by violence.”
”No, dear aunt; I am mild, upright, honorable, and an enemy to violence; but between you and me--between you who are the law and I who am to honor it--is a poor tormented creature, one of G.o.d's angels, subjected to iniquitous tortures. The spectacle of this injustice, this unheard-of violence, is what has converted my rect.i.tude into barbarity; my reason into brute force; my honor into violence, like an a.s.sa.s.sin's or a thief's; this spectacle, senora, is what impels me to disregard your law, what impels me to trample it under foot, braving every thing. This which appears to you lawlessness is obedience to an unescapable law. I do what society does when a brutal power, as illogical as irritating, opposes its progress. It tramples it under foot and destroys it in an outburst of frenzy. Such am I at this moment--I do not recognize myself.