“There was a time,” murmured Artegui, as if in answer to his own thoughts, “when I fancied that my apathy proceeded from the security in which I lived, and I desired to be indebted to myself, myself only, for a livelihood. For two years I refused to receive the allowance made me by my parents, devoting myself ardently to work and earning, as active partner in a large commercial house which I entered, more than sufficient for my wants; fortune attended me, like a faithful lover, but this constant and pitiless competition sickened me and I desired to try some work in which mind and body both should have a part and in which the gain should be no more than sufficient for my wants. I studied medicine, and taking advantage of the war at that time raging in the north of Spain, I joined the forces of Don Cárlos. My father’s name opened every door to me, and I devoted myself to practicing in the hospitals——”
“Was it then that you cured Sardiola?”
“Precisely, the poor devil had been horribly wounded by a discharge of grapeshot; his cheek was laid open and the jawbone injured, and, in addition, he was bleeding from an artery. The cure was a difficult but most successful one. I worked hard at that time and it was the period during which I suffered least from tedium. But in exchange——”
Artegui paused, fearing to proceed.
“To what purpose, child, to what purpose should I go on? I don’t even know why I should have given you all these nonsensical details, probably to you as unintelligible as the ravings of a madman are to the sane.”
“No, indeed,” declared Lucía, half offended, “I understand you very well, and, as a proof that I do, I am going to tell you what you have kept to yourself. You shall see that I will,” she cried, as Artegui smilingly shook his head. “You were less bored during the period in which you were an amateur physician, but in exchange—seeing so many dead people and so much blood and so much cruelty, you became still more—more of an unbeliever than you were before. Have I guessed right or not?”
Artegui looked at her, mute with amazement, and his brow contracted in a frown.
“And do you want me to tell you more? Well, that is what is the matter with you and it is for that reason that you are so dissatisfied with fate and with yourself. If you were a good Christian, you might indeed be sad, but with a different sort of sadness, more gentle and more resigned. For when one has the hope of going to heaven, one can suffer here in patience without giving way to despair.”
And as Artegui, with compressed lips, silently turned his head aside, the young girl murmured in a voice gentle as a caress:
“Don Ignacio, Father Urtazu has told me that there are men who do not wish to admit what the church teaches and what we believe, but who, in their own way, according to their fancy, in short, worship a God whom they have created for themselves, and who believe also that there is another life and that the soul does not die with the body—are you one of those men?”