But no; my sin shall not be followed, as its unavoidable consequence, by another sin!
What has been, has been, and can not be undone; but a repetition of it may be avoided, shall be avoided in future.
On the 25th, I repeat, I shall depart from here without fail.
The impudent Antoñona has just come to see me. I hid this letter from her, as if it were a crime to write to you.
Antoñona remained here only for a moment.
I arose, and remained standing while I spoke to her, that the visit might be a short one.
During this short visit she gave utterance to a thousand absurdities that afflict me profoundly. Finally, as she was going away, she exclaimed, in her half-gypsy jargon:
"Get away, you deceiver! you villain! my curse upon you! You have made the child sick, and now you are killing her with your subterfuges. May witches fly away with you, body and bones!"
Having said this, the fiendish woman gave me, in a coarse plebeian fashion, six or seven ferocious pinches below the shoulders, as if she would like to tear the skin from my back in strips; and then went away, looking daggers at me.
I do not complain. I deserve this brutal jest, granting it to be a jest. I deserve that fiends should tear my flesh with red-hot pincers.