“Oh!” cried Pilar with eager admiration and kissing her friend, “how good you are! What a saint! What a beautiful exception in this wretched world! Folks ought to come and worship you and pray to you as much as if you were canonized.”
“No, no, you are wrong, very wrong. What if I were to tell you that I am dreadfully wicked?”
“You, wicked! you?” said Pilar looking as horrified as if the idea were rank blasphemy. “And if you are a sinner what am I? Tell me that.... What am I?” and she answered the question herself with a deep and prolonged sigh, the pathetic expression of a conscience that was too heavily laden. “It would be a marvel to me that there should be any saints, even if the occasions of sin were rare, and half the world lived in convents or in caves, setting each other a good example; but now, when liberty has multiplied the opportunities of vice, and every one does as he pleases, and there is hardly any one to set a worthy example, it is miraculous. That is why I say that you ought to be canonized; for in Madrid, which is beyond a doubt the wickedest place under the sun—and in this century which, as Padre Paoletti says, is the opprobrium of the ages—you have been able to defy the temptations of the world and are worthy to be compared with the penitents, and confessors, and even the martyrs of the Church.” She emphasised the last words with marked meaning.
“Oh! do not speak so,” said María who though she liked flattery was wont to conceal the fact.
“My dear, I think you admirable, wonderful,” added her friend with affectionate rapture. “For I am miles behind you though I long to be like you. Would that Heaven might grant me to take a single step alone and unhindered in the path of perfection in which you are treading, and on which I have not even started! Do you know what I should like? To be constantly with you, to go to pray with you, if you would allow it, to read what you read, to think as you think; and see whether in that way I should feel better inspired. For the present I will only ask you to give me something belonging to you—anything, a handkerchief for instance, that I may always wear it in my bosom as if it were a relic. I want always to touch something that you have touched. I would never be without it, because when I see your handkerchief it will remind me of you and of your goodness, and that will help me to conquer an evil thought or a bad impulse. Admire you? And ought I not admire you, dear angel? Indeed, ma petite, you do not know your own value. You will see, when you die people will fight for pieces of your garments.”
“Pilar, you are offending Heaven by your adulation!”
“It is only that you are so good that you do not like to hear it. Your brother in glory was just the same, but you are better than he.”
“Pilar, for God’s sake!” cried María, now really horrified.
“Yes, and greater than he; I say so. He was a saint but you are a martyr as well. You have reached the climax of Christian heroism. I know no living creature to compare with you, and I do not know whether to admire or to pity you most.”
María did not understand her.