“I should not be obliged to get married.” Her revelation was of such serious import that the friar sat amazed, shaking his head and tightening his lips, as though saying to himself, “Bad, very bad.”
“So you——” he added, “Carmiña, let us speak without reserve, for we are here, in a sense, as though in the confessional. You are not marrying willingly?”
“Yes, Father, I marry willingly because I have made up my mind to do it, and when I make up my mind to do a thing—— I formed that resolution the day that my father told me that if Candidiña left the house, I should leave, too. Anything rather than hear and see what I have to. I have no other way of protesting. My filial respect ties my hands and even my tongue. But to sanction it by my presence; no, never!”
“And your brother?” asked the friar, eagerly.
“My brother—my brother has a child every year, and they need money, and my father gives it to them. That closes his eyes to everything; and he has even scolded me many times for urging papa to get married. He says that if he gets married he may have more children, and injure our prospects. I once thought of taking refuge with my brother, but his wife does not want me there, nor he neither. I shall not force my presence where it is not wanted.”
The friar remained silent for a few moments, his brow knit, and his hands pulling at the tassels of the cord which bound his waist. His face revealed the greatest anxiety, and he coughed and breathed heavily before venturing to speak, as though he were about to make some decisive and weighty remark.
“Well, my child,” he said, at last, “my advice is only what any person of ordinary judgment would give you. It is not a joke to get married, nor does it last only for a day. No, my child, it is the most decisive step of the whole life, for an honorable woman as you are, by the mercy of God. Tell me the truth, do you dislike that man?”
“Dislike him?”
Another long period of silence ensued. I held my breath. The rough branches of the yew tree cut into my flesh and the hand with which I was clinging to the tree began to get numb.
At length Carmen spoke in a changed tone: