taken shape in
his mind, that old habits of thinking had their say. There was Rosario
reminding him that Tonet was his brother! Wasn't it just as monstrous
for a brother to kill a brother as to betray him? One such case in the
history of the world--Cain, and what sort of a chap had Cain been? Not
much, to judge by what don Santiago said of him! And then again, was
Tonet really to blame? "No, Pascualo! You're to blame yourself, and
nobody else. I see it all clear as day. You robbed Tonet of his
sweetheart. That boy and Dolores were lovers before you even thought of
speaking to a girl of _tio_ Paella's! Now that was a mean trick, come to
think of it! Marry your brother's promised bride! As rotten a thing as
ever I did! And so, what else could you expect? There they are together
all the time--as had to be, brother-in-law, sister-in-law--and both in
the family. Well, could you expect them not to fall in love again?"

He stopped in his tracks for a moment, so obvious, so crushing, did the
sense of his own guilt come back to him. He looked around. It was the
beach, there, under his feet; and a few steps away was the tavern of his
mother. The blackening rotting boat, rising from the reed enclosures
around it, called up a flood of memories from the past. There they had
played together, he and Tonet, running about over the sands. Tonet was
on his shoulder, pulling at his hair in angry petulant disgust at not
having his own way. Just inside those walls, the old stateroom, and the
warm quilt thrown over the two of them! How tenderly he had cared for
his little brother, his comrade in poverty, who had rested his little
brown head sometimes on his very cheek! Yes, Rosario had been right. His
brother! More than that, his child! For it was he, really, more than
_sina_ Tona, who had been a loving parent to the boy, spoiling him,
slaving for him! "And now, I'm going to kill him! God, what beast would
commit a crime like that?" No, he would forgive Tonet. Why be a
Christian otherwise? Why, otherwise, believe in all the things don
Santiago talked about?

The absolute solitude of the seashore, the darkness as black as the
night before Creation, the complete aloofness from every human being,
brought a touch of sweetness back into that travailing spirit, with the
impulse toward forgiveness. Pascualo was recovering to a new life. It
seemed as though another being were inside him, and thinking for him.
Anguish had put an edge on his intellige