Part 8 (1/2)

Then I exclaim in the depths of my perturbed heart: ”My virtue faints!

My G.o.d, do not thou forsake me! Hasten to my help; show thy countenance, and I shall be saved.”

Thus do I recover strength to resist temptation. Thus again does the hope spring to life within me, that I shall regain my former tranquillity when I shall have left this place.

The devil longs with ardor to swallow up the pure waters of Jordan, by which are symbolized the persons who are consecrated to G.o.d. h.e.l.l conspires against them, and lets loose all her monsters, upon them. St.

Bonaventure says, ”We should not wonder that these persons have sinned, but rather that they have not sinned.”

Notwithstanding, I shall be able to resist and not sin. The Lord will protect me.

_June 6th._

Pepita's nurse--now her housekeeper--is, as my father says, a good bag of wrinkles; she is talkative, gay, and skillful, as few are. She married the son of Master Cencias, and has inherited from the father what the son did not inherit--a wonderful facility for the mechanical arts, with this difference; that while Master Cencias could set the screw of a wine-press, or repair the wheels of a wagon, or make a plow, this daughter-in-law of his knows how to make sweetmeats, conserves of honey, and other dainties. The father-in-law practiced the useful arts, the daughter-in-law those that have for their object pleasure, though only innocent, or at least lawful pleasure.

Antonona--for such is her name--is permitted, or a.s.sumes, the greatest familiarity with all the gentry here. She goes in and out of every house as if it were her own. She says _thou_ to all the young people of Pepita's age, or four or five years older; she calls them _nino_ and _nina,_ and treats them as if she had nursed them at her breast.

She behaves toward me with the same familiarity; she comes to visit me, enters my room unannounced, and has asked me several times already why I no longer go to see her mistress, and has told me that I am wrong in not going.

My father, who has no suspicion of the truth, accuses me of eccentricity; he calls me an owl, and he, too, is determined that I shall resume my visits to Pepita. Last night I could no longer resist his repeated importunities, and I went to her house very early, as my father was about to settle his accounts with the overseer.

Would G.o.d I had not gone!

Pepita was alone. When our glances met, when we saluted each other, we both turned red. We shook hands with timidity and in silence.

I did not press her hand, nor did she press mine, but for a moment we held them clasped together.

In Pepita's glance, as she looked at me, there was nothing of love; there was only friends.h.i.+p, sympathy, and a profound sadness.

She had divined the whole of my inward struggle; she was persuaded that divine love had triumphed in my soul; that my resolution not to love her was firm and invincible.

She did not venture to complain of me; she had no reason to complain of me; she knew that right was on my side. A sigh, scarcely perceptible, that escaped from her dewy, parted lips, revealed to me the depth of her sorrow.

Her hand still lay in mine; we were both silent. How say to her that she was not destined for me, nor I for her; that we must part forever?

But, though my lips refused to tell her this in words, I told it to her with my eyes; my severe glance confirmed her fears; it convinced her of the irrevocableness of my decision.

All at once her gaze was troubled; her lovely countenance, pale with a translucent pallor, was contracted with a touching expression of melancholy. She looked like Our Lady of Sorrows. Two tears rose slowly to her eyes, and began to steal down her cheeks.

I know not what pa.s.sed within me--and how describe it, even if I knew?

I bent toward her to kiss away her tears, and our lips met in a kiss.

A rapture unspeakable, a faintness full of peril, invaded our whole being. She would have fallen, but that I supported her in my arms.

Heaven willed that we should at this moment hear the step and the cough of the reverend vicar, who was approaching, and we instantly drew apart.

Recovering myself, and summoning all the strength of my will, I brought to an end this terrible scene, that had been enacted in silence, with these words, which I p.r.o.nounced in low and intense accents:

”The first and the last!”