is. This flattered the worthy Don Leandro immensely,
though he affected not to listen to him, for he detested backbiting, and
was greatly afraid of hell, though not so much of purgatory.

So that Marroquin, in spite of his depraved ideas, served as a powerful
temptation for his friend to go into El Levante and have a glass of
water, for example. Don Leandro, no matter what opprobriums the
heretical professor heaped upon his born enemy, acquiesced with a smile;
and even, from time to time, he himself would let slip some spiteful
word, promising before the tribunal of his conscience to confess it
immediately.

But the trouble was, Don Leandro's confessor was the very same chaplain,
who, like his glorious predecessor, Gregory VII., aspired to possess the
key to the consciences of his subjects, and would not hear to any
alumnus or dependent of the college confiding his load of sins to any
other bosom than his.

This, according to all logic, caused poor Don Leandro great tribulation,
who, as he went often to confession, found himself obliged to tell the
chaplain all the evil thoughts that he had about him; but the torment
that the latter inflicted was much greater and more cruel. Oftentimes,
while Don Leandro was unbosoming himself, the confessor heaved deep
sighs and made the confessional creak as though his chair pinched him.

He was tempted to dismiss him from the college, but he felt that such a
thing would be an attack on the sacred character of the confessional,
since Don Leandro did his duty conscientiously, and to turn him off
required that he should make use of his knowledge acquired in the
tribunal of penance.

Afterwards it occurred to him to send him to some one else to make his
confession; but the demon of curiosity had firm possession of him, and,
though every day he promised himself to give him notice, he never
reached the point of doing so, and continued to hear his own deeds
criticised without the power to defend himself.

"_Barajoles!_ what a penance God has put upon me," he would say
afterwards, as he strode up and down his room. "How I should like to
give this idiot a couple of raps!"

Don Leandro, when he entered El Levante, had no idea that he was going
to meet so many gentlemen, and still less that there were among them a
number of impious revolutionists, enemies of "all religious restraint."
Accordingly, when he began to hear them speak of the government in the
terms which they were wont to us