And here I should like to tell another little story, also of brave self-restraint in the face of death, though of a different character.
Whatever may be the attitude of certain classes of Spaniards towards their religion and their priests, it is certain that most ladies of gentle birth believe implicitly in the dogmas and teaching of their Church. And of these one tenet of the truth of which they are absolutely convinced is that a soul which leaves the body unshriven will suffer doubly in purgatory, unless Supreme Unction is omitted owing to wilful obstruction on some one else’s part. In such a case the one who interferes with the last rites must bear the penalty, which here, in the belief of a strict Catholic, amounts to little less than eternal damnation.
A girl friend of mine saw her mother suddenly struck down with pneumonia, and the doctors told her that the case was quite hopeless, and that death must supervene within three days. None of the family had had the slightest idea that there was any danger, and when Rosa returned to the sick-room after hearing the verdict, her mother reproached her for being so long away.
“I heard you talking,” she said; “who were you with, and what was all the conversation about?”
“It was the—the—laundress,” said Rosa, “you know how careless she is.”
Her great-aunt, a stern old lady who ruled Rosa and her sister with a rod of iron, here called the girl out of the room.
“Not a moment must be lost,” she said. “We must immediately send for the priest, lest your mother should suddenly die without the Holy Oils.”
And now Rosa, a plump, placid, and hitherto seemingly characterless person, showed what filial love is capable of. I will finish the story in her own words, as she related it to me a few months later.
“I knew that if the priest came it would frighten my mother terribly. She was not at all frightened then, and was she to spend her last days on earth in a state of panic? ‘I will not send for the priest,’ I told my great-aunt, for it was my duty to send in the absence of my father, because I was the elder of the children and a nearer relation than my great-aunt. She was very angry. ‘You know what this means?’ she asked, and I said ‘Yes.’ I knew what my punishment would be, and I was willing to remain for ever in purgatory to spare my mother the fear and pain of knowing that she must leave us all. I was very frightened, but I would not give way, and my father is a free-thinker, so when he came home he said I had done well. But after my mother was dead (she died quite peacefully, thinking she was only falling asleep) my conscience troubled me very much, and I went and told what I had done to our confessor. And he was very gentle to me. He said: ‘Child, there are moments when what seems a mortal sin is only a lesser sin.’ And he gave me only a little penance, for he said he knew I had suffered very much.”
I am generally very careful to refrain from expressing any sort of opinion regarding the rites and rules of a religion which is not my own; but on this occasion I forgot myself. I told Rosa she had behaved nobly, and kissed her on both cheeks as heartily as if I had been a Spanish lady. With immense difficulty I had induced the father and the terrible great-aunt to let Rosa come with me to the seaside, for she had been ailing ever since her mother’s death, and it was considered impossible for her to leave the house in her own town, even for the walks which the doctor had recommended as necessary exercise.