smooth-faced theologian. I
shall not attempt to conceal from you that, for the moment, this
disappointment mortified and distressed me a little; but, when I
reflected over it with due consideration, my mortification and my
distress were converted into joy. Luis is an excellent boy. Since he has
been with me, I have learned to regard him with much greater affection
than formerly. I parted from him, and gave him up to you to educate,
because my own life was not very exemplary, and, for this and other
reasons, he would have grown up here a savage. You went beyond my hopes
and even my desires, and almost made of Luisito a father of the Church.
To have a holy son would have flattered my vanity; but I should have
been very sorry to remain without an heir to my house and name, who
would give me handsome grandchildren, and who, after my death, would
enjoy my wealth, which is my glory, for I acquired it by skill and
industry, and not by artifices and tricks. Perhaps the conviction I had
that there was no remedy, and that Luis would inevitably go to convert
the Chinese, the Indians, and the blacks of Monicongo made me resolve on
marrying, so as to provide myself with an heir. Naturally enough, I cast
my eyes on Pepita Ximenez, who is not, as you imagine, a limb of Satan,
but a lovely creature, as innocent as an angel, and ardent in her
nature, rather than coquettish. I have so good an opinion of Pepita
that, if she were again sixteen, with a domineering mother who
tyrannized over her, and if I were eighty, like Don Gumersindo, that is
to say, if death were already knocking at the door, I would marry
Pepita, that her smile might cheer me on my death-bed, as if my guardian
angel had taken human shape in her; and for the purpose of leaving her
my position, my fortune, and my name. But Pepita is not sixteen, but
twenty, nor is she now in the power of that serpent, her mother; nor am
I eighty, but fifty-five. I am at the very worst age, because I begin to
feel myself considerably the worse for wear, with something of asthma, a
good deal of cough, rheumatic pains, and other chronic ailments; yet the
devil a wish have I to die, notwithstanding! I believe I shall not die
for twenty years to come, and, as I am thirty-five years older than
Pepita, you may calculate the miserable future that would await her,
tied to an old man who would live forever. At the end of a few years of
marriage she would be compelled to hate me, notwithstanding her