So I studied with greater zest, desiring to be able to make the last years of my mother’s life easy and tranquil. But that was a mistaken idea; for, even if my mother were to have heaps of money, she would be just as active, given her temperament and disposition. She was so overflowing with life, and was so energetic and determined to get what she could out of the world, that far from inspiring compassion, she should have excited envy in those of us who dwell much within ourselves, and finally make of our imagination a prison cell.
My mother’s disposition was of the kind that makes people happy and strong, and arms them against the friction and disappointments of life.
It was singular, but when I did not see my mother, I idealized her, and gave her credit for certain traits and weaknesses associated with her sex, which she was far from possessing. For example, I was strongly persuaded that she had passionate religious convictions, and sometimes I would respond to the profane jokes of my companions, or exclaim when I gave utterance to some audacious assertion: “Heaven grant that my mother may never know it.” If I ate meat in Holy Week, or remembered how long a time had passed without my going to church, I would say to myself: “I hope my mother wont find it out.” But the fact is that my mother, in spite of her Carmelite habit, attended to her church duties only perfunctorily, and never displayed any great concern for the welfare of my soul.
That is not to say that the high-spirited Galician woman had no positive beliefs. Doubtless my mother inherited from her Jewish ancestors the most deeply-rooted of her religious convictions, namely, that God was an angry, vindictive and implacable being—the God of the Old Testament who “visits the sins of the fathers upon the children, to the third and fourth generation.” She believed naïvely that God does all this punishing unmercifully, right on the spot; and she also imagined that he was particularly disposed to pour out all the vials of his wrath upon those who troubled her, Benigna Unceta, for any cause or in any way. Thanks to her incapacity for general ideas, she concluded that the Deity was greatly interested in her personal wrongs and resentments. So much so, that when she stopped on the slope between us and Ullosa, quite out of breath with climbing and the vehemence of her anger, she exclaimed, in a prophetic tone:
“You’ll see how God will punish your Uncle Felipe in His own way. You’ll see. Just wait; he’ll not get off scot-free.”
I protested against this singular supposition, and, as though a heavenly voice from above joined with me in proclaiming mercy and charity, just then the Angelus sounded from the little church near by, with subdued melancholy and great poetic effect.
My mother turned abruptly and inquired:
“Are you going to the wedding?”
“Yes, indeed, and you ought to go also. It is scandalous that you should not go.”
“Don’t say anything to me, for I have no desire to be present at such a frightful scene. There never was, and never will be, such an absurd thing. Heaven grant that your uncle may not get an unfaithful wife! I wouldn’t wager a copper that he will not, though, marrying at his age! A nice thing it would be if I got married now!”