"Pepita, child," he said, "be reasonable; don't torment yourself in this way. Console yourself with the thought that it was not without a hard struggle he was able to conquer himself; that he has not deceived you; that he loves you with his whole soul, but that God and his duty come first. This life is short, and soon passes. In heaven you will be reunited, and will love each other, as the angels love. God will accept your sacrifice; he will reward you, and repay you with interest. Even your self-love ought to be satisfied. How great must be your merit, when you have caused a man like Don Luis to waver in his resolution, and even to sin! How deep must be the wound you have made in his heart! Let this suffice you. Be generous! be courageous! Be his rival in firmness. Let him depart; cast out from your heart the fire of impure love; love him as your neighbor, for the love of God. Guard his image in your memory, but as that of the creature, reserving to the Creator the noblest part of your soul. I know not what I am saying to you, my child, for I am very much troubled; but you have a great deal of intelligence and a great deal of common sense, and you will understand what I mean. Besides, there are powerful worldly reasons against this absurd love, even if the vocation and the vow of Don Luis were not opposed to it. His father is your suitor. He aspires to your hand, even though you do not love him. Does it look well that the son should turn out now to be the rival of his father? Will not the father be displeased with the son for loving you? See how dreadful all this is, and control yourself for the sake of Jesus and his blessed Mother."
"How easy it is to give advice!" returned Pepita, becoming a little calmer. "How hard for me to follow it, when there is a fierce and unchained tempest, as it were, raging in my soul! I am afraid I shall go mad."
"The advice I give you is for your own good. Let Don Luis depart. Absence is a great remedy for the malady of love. In giving himself up to his studies, and consecrating himself to the service of the altar, he will be cured of his passion. When he is far away, you will recover your serenity by degrees, and will preserve in your memory only a grateful and melancholy recollection of him that will do you no harm. It will be like a beautiful poem whose music will harmonize your existence. Even if all your desires could be fulfilled—earthly love lasts, after all, but a short time. The delight the imagination anticipates in its enjoyment—what is it in comparison with the bitter dregs that remain behind, when the cup has been drained to the bottom? How much better is it that your love, hardly yet contaminated, hardly despoiled of its purity, should be dissipated, and exhale itself now, rising up to heaven like a cloud of incense, than that, after it is once satisfied, it should perish through satiety! Have the courage to put away from your lips the cup while you have hardly tasted of its contents. Make of them a libation and an offering to the Divine Redeemer. He will give you, in exchange, the draught he offered to the Samaritan—a draught that does not satiate, that quenches the thirst, and that produces eternal life."
"How good you are, father! Your holy words lend me courage. I will control myself; I will conquer myself. It would be shameful—would it not?—that Don Luis should be able to control and conquer himself, and that I should not be able to do so? Let him depart. He is going away the day after to-morrow; let him go with God's blessing. See his card. He was here with his father to take leave of me, and I would not receive him. I do not even want to preserve the poetical remembrance of him of which you speak. This love has been a nightmare; I will cast it away from me."
"Good! very good! It is thus that I want to see you—energetic, courageous."
"Ah, father, God has cast down my pride with this blow. I was insolent in my arrogance, and the scorn of this man was necessary to my self-abasement. Could I be more humbled or more resigned than I am now? Don Luis is right: I am not worthy of him. However great the efforts I might make, I could not succeed in elevating myself to him and comprehending him, in putting my spirit into perfect communication with his. I am a rude country girl, unlearned, uncultured; and he—there is no science he does not understand, no secret of which he is ignorant, no region of the intellectual world, however exalted, to which he may not soar. Thither on the wings of his genius does he mount; and me he leaves behind in this lower sphere, poor, ignorant woman that I am, incapable of following him even in my hopes or with my aspirations."
"But, Pepita, for Heaven's sake don't say such things, or think them! Don Luis does not scorn you because you are ignorant, or because you are incapable of comprehending him, or for any other of those absurd reasons that you are stringing together. He goes away because he must fulfill his obligation toward God; and you should rejoice that he is going away, for you will then forget your love for him, and God will reward you for the sacrifice you make."
Pepita, who had left off crying, and had dried her tears with her handkerchief, answered quietly:
"Very well, father; I shall be very glad of it; I am almost glad now that he is going away. I long for to-morrow to pass, and for the time to come when Antoñona shall say to me on wakening, 'Don Luis is gone.' You shall see then how peace and serenity will spring up again in my heart."
"God grant it may be so!" said the reverend vicar; and, convinced that he had wrought a miracle and almost cured Pepita's malady, he took leave of her and went home, unable to repress a certain feeling of vanity at the thought of the influence he had exercised over the noble spirit of this charming woman.