g for my
brother? But do not speak to me of that; she has caused me much pain,
she has broken my life, how I did not die, I know not. Have you
thought well that for centuries the family of the Lunas have been the
mirror of the Cathedral, respected by even the archbishops, and now,
suddenly to find oneself among the lowest, exposed to the ridicule of
all and looked upon with compassion by the veriest little acolyte!
What I have suffered! The times I have wept with rage alone in this
home, hearing what they were saying behind my back. And then," he
added quietly as though grief were paralysing his voice, "there was
that unhappy martyr who died of shame; my poor wife who left the world
so as not to see my grief and the contempt of others! And do you wish
me to forget all this? For the rest, Gabriel, I cannot express what
I feel as well as you do. But honour--is honour. It is to live in my
house without fear of being shamed, to sleep at night without fearing
to see in the darkness our father's eyes, asking why I allow a lost
woman to live under the same roof that the Lunas won for themselves
by centuries of service to the house of God; it is to avoid people
mocking at our family. Let them say, 'Those Lunas! how unfortunate
they are,' but they shall never say the Lunas are a family wanting in
shame. By our love, brother, leave me; do not speak to me of this.
Those evil doctrines have poisoned your mind; not only have you ceased
to believe in God, but you have ceased to believe in honour."

"And what is all this?" said Gabriel, warming. "You yourself do not
know. 'Honour is honour.' Well, I say, children are children. You, man
of prejudices, you do not wait to consider that those beings are the
continuation of our own existence. Your religion makes you think
children are a fruit from God, nevertheless you think yourself better
and more perfect when you reject and curse those gifts of Heaven if
they cause you any trouble. No, Esteban, the love of children and pity
for their faults ought to come before all prejudices. This eternal
life of the soul, that lying promise of religion, is only true through
our children. The soul dies with the body; it is no more than a
manifestation of our own thoughts, and thought is a cerebral function,
but children perpetuate our own being throughout the generations and
the centuries; it is they who make us immortal, and that preserve
and transmit something of our personality, even as we have inhe