red: "Impossible! It's true that I
cannot love or be happy in my country, but I can suffer and die in it,
and perhaps for it--that is always something. May the misfortunes of
my native land be my own misfortunes and, although no noble sentiment
unites us, although our hearts do not beat to a single name, at least
may the common calamity bind me to my countrymen, at least may I weep
over our sorrows with them, may the same hard fate oppress all our
hearts alike!"

"Then why do you advise me to go away?"

"Because in some other country you could be happy while I could not,
because you are not made to suffer, and because you would hate your
country if some day you should see yourself ruined in its cause,
and to hate one's native land is the greatest of calamities."

"You are unfair to me!" exclaimed Ibarra with bitter reproach. "You
forget that scarcely had I arrived here when I set myself to seek
its welfare."

"Don't be offended, sir, I was not reproaching you at all. Would
that all of us could imitate you! But I do not ask impossibilities
of you and I mean no offense when I say that your heart deceives
you. You loved your country because your father taught you to do so;
you loved it because in it you had affection, fortune, youth, because
everything smiled on you, your country had done you no injustice;
you loved it as we love anything that makes us happy. But the day in
which you see yourself poor and hungry, persecuted, betrayed, and
sold by your own countrymen, on that day you will disown yourself,
your country, and all mankind."

"Your words pain me," said Ibarra resentfully.

Elias bowed his head and meditated before replying. "I wish to
disillusion you, sir, and save you from a sad future. Recall that
night when I talked to you in this same banka under the light of
this same moon, not a month ago. Then you were happy, the plea of
the unfortunates did not touch you; you disdained their complaints
because they were the complaints of criminals; you paid more attention
to their enemies, and in spite of my arguments and petitions, you
placed yourself on the side of their oppressors. On you then depended
whether I should turn criminal or allow myself to be killed in order
to carry out a sacred pledge, but God has not permitted this because
the old chief of the outlaws is dead. A month has hardly passed and
you think otherwise."

"You're right, Elias, but man is a creature of circumstances! Then
I was blind, an