Who knows, I say to myself at times, notwithstanding her prayers, her secluded and devout life, her alms and her gifts to the churches, on all which is based the affection that the vicar entertains for her, if there be not also an earthly spell, if there be not something of diabolical magic in the arts she practices, and with which she deludes and beguiles this simple vicar, so that he thinks and speaks only of her on all occasions?
The very influence that Pepita exercises over a man so incredulous as my father, a man whose nature is so vigorous and so little sentimental, has in it, in truth, something extraordinary.
Nor do the good works of Pepita suffice to explain the respect and affection with which she inspires these country-people in general. On the rare occasions on which she leaves her house, the little children run to meet her and kiss her hand; the young girls smile, and salute her with affection; and the men take off their hats, as she passes, and incline themselves before her with the most spontaneous reverence and the most natural good-feeling.
Pepita Ximenez, whom many of the villagers have known since she was born, and who, to the knowledge of every one here, lived in poverty with her mother, until her marriage to the decrepid and avaricious Don Gumersindo, has caused all this to be forgotten, and is now looked upon as a wondrous being, a visitant, pure and radiant, from some distant land, from some higher sphere, and is regarded by her fellow-townspeople with affectionate esteem, and something like loving admiration.
I see that I am inadvertently falling into the same fault that I censure in the reverend vicar, and that I speak to you of nothing but Pepita. But this is natural. Here no one speaks of anything else. One would suppose the whole place to be full of the spirit, of the thought, of the image, of this singular woman, in regard to whom I have not been able to determine if she be an angel or an accomplished coquette, full of _instinctive astuteness_, although the words may seem to involve a contradiction. For I am fully convicted in my own mind that this woman does not play the coquette, nor seek to gain the good-will of others, in order to gratify her vanity.