"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!"
"God knows that I love her, and that is sufficient for me."
"Be silent, blasphemer! and don't take the name of God upon your lips!" exclaimed Dona Perfecta. "In the name of God, 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 hell, for a union with you would be a hell!"
"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 God's angels, subjected to iniquitous tortures. The spectacle of this injustice, this unheard-of violence, is what has converted my rectitude into barbarity; my reason into brute force; my honor into violence, like an assassin'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. I was reasonable, and now I am a brute; I was respectful, and now I am insolent; I was civilized, and now I am a savage. You have brought me to this horrible extremity; infuriating me and driving me from the path of rectitude which I was tranquilly pursuing. Who is to blame--I or you?"
"You, you!"
"Neither you nor I can decide the question. I think we are both to blame: you for your violence and injustice, I for my injustice and violence. We have both become equally barbarous, and we struggle with and wound each other without compassion. God has permitted that it should be so; my blood will be upon your conscience, yours will be upon mine. Enough now, senora. I do not wish to trouble you with useless words. We will now proceed to acts."
"To acts, very well!" said Dona Perfecta, roaring rather than speaking.
"Don't suppose that in Orbajosa there is no civil guard!"
"Good-by, senora. I will now leave this house. I think we shall meet again."
"Go, go! go now!" she cried, pointing with an energetic gesture to the door.
Pepe Rey left the room. Dona Perfecta, after pronouncing a few incoherent words, which were the clearest expression of her anger, sank into a chair, with indications of fatigue, or of a coming attack of nerves. The maids came running in.
"Go for Senor Don Inocencio!" she cried. "Instantly--hurry! Ask him to come here!"
Then she tore her handkerchief with her teeth.
