“I do not think it is safe for you to go there. If he were to offer you some grosser insult, if you were to meet Pepa face to face, or her child—supposing that the child is in its father’s arms—for they say he is devoted to it....”
“Its father?” said María “Why Federico is dead?”
“No, no,” said her friend, with the expression of cruel resolve that she might have put on while thrusting a needle through some wretched insect to add it to a collection. “No, do you not see? Your husband ...”
“Leon ... my husband ... Monina’s father!” exclaimed the poor woman. The fresh blow stunned her as the first had done.
“So the people choose to say,” said Milagros trying to soften the shock.
“And you, Mamma, what do you think? Is it true?” asked María with great anxiety.
These two women were not malicious; their state of mind—analogous to that state of the body which is known to physicians as cachexy—was the result of a lack of sound principle from moral impoverishment, a disease caused by the life they led and the constant infection of an atmosphere full of deceptions and scandal. Still, there was something in them that made them revolt at their own cruelty; horrified at the depth and bitterness of the cup they had put to María’s lips, they now attempted to qualify it.
“No, I believe it is a fable.”
“No, I believe....” But Pilar, who was less generous than her friend, did not finish her sentence.
“The idea arose,” she added, “from a certain likeness....”