Pepe was silent. There was a long pause, during which the two regarded each other attentively, as if the face of each was for the other the most perfect work of art.
“Don’t you understand what I have said to you?” she repeated. “That every thing is at an end, that there is to be no marriage.”
“Permit me, dear aunt,” said the young man, with composure, “not to be terrified by the intimation. In the state at which things have arrived your refusal has little importance for me.”
“What are you saying?” cried Doña Perfecta violently.
“What you hear. I will marry Rosario!”
Doña Perfecta rose to her feet, indignant, majestic, terrible. Her attitude was that of anathema incarnated in a woman. Rey remained seated, serene, courageous, with the passive courage of a profound conviction and an immovable resolve. The whole weight of his aunt’s wrath, threatening to overwhelm him, did not make him move an eyelash. This was his character.
“You are mad. Marry my daughter, you! Marry her against my will!”
Doña Perfecta’s trembling lips articulated these words in a truly tragic tone.
“Against your will! She is of a different way of thinking.”
“Against my will!” repeated Doña Perfecta. “Yes, and I repeat it again and again. I do not wish it, I do not wish it!”