Remedios; to solve a serious question you can think of nothing better
than a piece of folly like that. I have thought of a means more worthy
of noble-minded and well-bred persons. A beating! What stupidity!
Besides, I would not on any account have my nephew receive even so
much as a scratch by an order of mine. God will send him his punishment
through some one of the wonderful ways which he knows how to choose. All
we have to do is to work in order that the designs of God may find no
obstacle. Maria Remedios, it is necessary in matters of this kind to go
directly to the causes of things. But you know nothing about causes--you
can see only trifles."

"That may be so," said the priest's niece, with humility. "I wonder why
God made me so foolish that I can understand nothing of those sublime
ideas!"

"It is necessary to go to the bottom--to the bottom, Remedios. Don't you
understand yet?"

"No."

"My nephew is not my nephew, woman; he is blasphemy, sacrilege, atheism,
demagogy. Do you know what demagogy is?"

"Something relating to those people who burned Paris with petroleum;
and those who pull down the churches and fire on the images. So far I
understand very well."

"Well, my nephew is all that! Ah! if he were alone in Orbajosa--but no,
child. My nephew, through a series of fatalities, which are trials, the
transitory evils that God permits for our chastisement, is equivalent to
an army; is equivalent to the authority of the government; equivalent to
the alcalde; equivalent to the judge. My nephew is not my nephew; he
is the official nation, Remedios--that second nation composed of the
scoundrels who govern in Madrid, and who have made themselves masters of
its material strength; of that apparent nation--for the real nation is
the one that is silent, that pays and suffers; of that fictitious
nation that signs decrees and pronounces discourses and makes a farce of
government, and a farce of authority, and a farce of every thing. That
is what my nephew is to-day; you must accustom yourself to look under
the surface of things. My nephew is the government, the brigadier, the
new alcalde, the new judge--for they all protect him, because of the
unanimity of their ideas; because they are chips of the same block,
birds of a feather. Understand it well; we must defend ourselves against
them all, for they are all one, and one is all; we must attack them
all together; and not by beating a man as he turns a corner, but as o