“Not that,” he would say, “I like it too well.”
When they begged him to take this or that remedy he always refused.
“But if you would rather not take it,” his sister would say with subtle logic, “mortify yourself by taking it,” and he would smile and give way.
He received visits from various priests, principally Frenchmen, with fringes of hair and three-cornered cocked hats, highly-bred, worldly, soft-tongued, and they discussed the affairs of the Seminary. There was a veneer of polish in their conversation with an affected tone peculiar to certain circles. More rarely there came grave Spanish priests, who, when they are really good men, are the most priestly priests in Christendom, true ministers of God, pious, affable without affectation and full of sound and healthy wisdom. Luis Gonzaga liked their company, but he preferred solitude; still, in conversation he displayed his keen judgment—not devoid of flavour and wit, his perfect piety which none could fail to appreciate, and his gift of grave, subtle and impassioned eloquence. He went every morning in the carriage, carefully wrapped and watched, to church, and came back towards evening; on his return, he meditated for a time on his knees, and would take no food but when his emaciated frame was fainting for lack of it, and even in the midst of his scanty meal he would often be seized with such acute spasms that it seemed as though his last hour had come. He would allow no one to help him to dress and undress, nor to sleep in his room; María pointed out to her husband that sometimes the bed was undisturbed and he must have lain on the floor. The padded sofas and chairs, which the march of industry has placed within the reach of the most modest household, knew not the weight of his bones; he commonly sat on a cane stool without a back and remained there for hours, rigid, weary and bathed in sweat. When he could no longer hold himself up, he would push the stool to the wall and lean his aching shoulders against that, with his head thrown back, his eyes closed, and his hands clasped—he looked like a criminal about to be throttled.
He never spoke of his absent brothers or his father; the person to whom he showed most attachment, and some confidence was María; Leon he never even looked at.
He was often tormented by religious scruples and would sometimes speak of them. If by chance his mind wandered for a quarter of an hour from the contemplation of death he was deeply distressed and blamed himself severely. His ambition was to imitate exactly, or as nearly as possible, the famous and saintly child whose name he bore—that angelic spirit that fled from earth, burnt out by mystical fervours, at the age of twenty-three, and which during its brief existence here was a voluntary martyr to every form of mortification, repressing every natural impulse, and cherishing the inner life of the spirit, by relentlessly cutting off and plucking out every thought and feeling that was foreign to the aim of self-purification and a passionate yearning for salvation.
Like his Jesuit model, Luis Tellería suffered frightfully from headaches. Acute neuralgia, which had frequently attacked him at the Seminary of Puyóo, tormented him no less at Madrid, scorching his brain and upsetting his whole frame; his head felt like a mould filled with molten lead. But through all these periods of intense suffering, his soul, thrown back on itself, revelled in the martyrdom and accepted physical torture with a defiant rapture which bordered on pride, and a sort of delirious luxury. He never uttered a complaint; nay, when his brain seemed turned to fiery serpents he could force his lips to smile. When Saint Luis Gonzaga suffered thus, his Superior advised him not to think so much and he would have less pain. His friends gave his namesake the same advice; but the young man, rejoiced at the implied comparison, answered:
“You wish me to think less that I may have less headache, but it would hurt me far more to try not to think.”
His physician ordered him a variety of soothing and other medicines. He took them as he was desired when his mother besought him with prayers and sobs; but the medicine he preferred was a scourge of leather with iron spikes which he always carried twisted through his girdle. His sister often stole on tiptoe to his door at night, and found him on his knees in front of the crucifix which he had placed at the foot of his bed.