goodness. Doubtless it is because she is good and wise, that she has not
chosen to accept me for a husband, notwithstanding the perseverance and
the obstinacy with which I have proposed it to her. How much do I not
thank her for this now! Even my self-love, wounded by her scorn, is
soothed by the reflection that, if she does not love me, at least she
loves one of my blood; she is captivated by a son of mine. If this fresh
and luxuriant ivy, I say to myself, refuses to twine around the old
trunk, worm-eaten already, it climbs by it to reach the new sprout it
has put forth--a green and flourishing offshoot. May God bless them
both, and make their love prosper! Far from taking the boy to you again,
I shall keep him here--by force, if it be necessary. I have determined
to conspire against his vocation. I dream already of seeing him married.
I shall grow young again, contemplating the handsome pair, joined
together by love. And how will it be when they shall have given me a
couple of grandchildren? Instead of going as a missionary, and bringing
back to me from Australia, or Madagascar, or India, neophytes black as
soot, with lips the size of your hand, or yellow as deer-skin, and with
eyes like owls, would it not be better for Luisito to preach the gospel
in his own house, and to give me a series of little catechumens, fair,
rosy, with eyes like those of Pepita, who will resemble cherubim without
wings? The catechumens he would bring me from those foreign lands I
should have to keep at a respectful distance, in order not to be
overpowered by their odor; while those I speak of would seem to me like
roses of paradise, and would come to climb up on my knees, and would
call me grand-papa, and pat with their little hands the bald spot I am
beginning to get. What would you have? When I was in all my vigor, I did
not think of domestic joys; but now, that I am approaching old age, if I
have not already entered on it, as I have no intention of turning monk,
I please myself in thinking that I shall play the _role_ of patriarch.
And do not imagine, either, that I am going to leave it to time to bring
to a happy close this incipient engagement. No! I shall myself set to
work to do this. Continuing your comparison, since you transform Pepita
into a crucible, and Luis into a metal, I shall find, or rather I have
found already, a bellows, or blow-pipe, very well adapted to kindle up
the fire, so that the metal may melt in it the more quickly