“God bless me!” sighed the friar. “What folly! and, allow me to add, what stupidity! At his age--at his age!”
“Fancy it; he has even gone so far as to say, ‘I will not marry her, because that would be nonsense; but, if Candidiña leaves by one door, you shall leave by the other and go to your brother’s house.’ And he said it with such a tone and air that--why, I shed more tears that day, Father, than I should if my father had died! If he had died! Oh, I wish that he had died, if he were at peace with his Maker! I would rather see him dead a thousand times than this way--his gray hairs dishonored!”
As she said this, Señorita Aldao seemed to me very handsome. Her eyes flashed, and her nostrils dilated with enthusiasm and indignation. Her bosom rose and fell convulsively. The friar looked at her in amazement.
“You are more than right!” he exclaimed at last. “How much better it would be to die than to wallow in disgusting sins! Death is nature’s law; we all have to pay that tribute sooner or later; but, my child, at least let us refrain from paying another to the devil so that he may laugh at the way he cheats us. How slight a thing man is, my child, and for what vile toys he will go to destruction! Lucifer’s sin consisted in pride, an ugly sin, but it is not so vile, so indecent as--faugh!” and here the friar gave a start like a man seeing some disgusting animal.
“Unfortunately,” said the young girl, trying to calm herself, “there is a little of everything here, and pride plays an active part in this affair. If it were not for pride, papa would marry that girl who has turned his head so completely. People would laugh at him a little,--that is, a good deal,--but there would be no disgrace, no crime. I should not be obliged to submit to what has caused me such bitter sorrow ever since I reached the years of discretion. Furthermore, I should not have to----”
“I should not be obliged to get married.” Her revelation was of such serious import that the friar sat amazed, shaking his head and tightening his lips, as though saying to himself, “Bad, very bad.”
“So you----” he added, “Carmiña, let us speak without reserve, for we are here, in a sense, as though in the confessional. You are not marrying willingly?”