"To this letter of the dean I answered as follows:
Don Pedro's Answer.
"Dear Brother and Venerable Spiritual Father: I return you a thousand thanks for the news you send me, and for your counsel and advice. Although I flatter myself with not being wanting in shrewdness, I confess my stupidity on this occasion; I was blinded by vanity. Pepita Ximenez, from the time that my son arrived here, manifested toward me so much amiability and affection that I began to indulge in pleasing hopes on my own account. Your letter was necessary to undeceive me. I now understand that in making herself so sociable, in showing me so many attentions, and in dancing attendance on me, as she did, this cunning Pepita had in her mind only the father of the smooth-faced theologian. I shall not attempt to conceal from you that, for the moment, this disappointment mortified and distressed me a little; but, when I reflected over it with due consideration, my mortification and my distress were converted into joy. Luis is an excellent boy. Since he has been with me, I have learned to regard him with much greater affection than formerly. I parted from him, and gave him up to you to educate, because my own life was not very exemplary, and, for this and other reasons, he would have grown up here a savage. You went beyond my hopes and even my desires, and almost made of Luisito a father of the Church. To have a holy son would have flattered my vanity; but I should have been very sorry to remain without an heir to my house and name, who would give me handsome grandchildren, and who, after my death, would enjoy my wealth, which is my glory, for I acquired it by skill and industry, and not by artifices and tricks. Perhaps the conviction I had that there was no remedy, and that Luis would inevitably go to convert the Chinese, the Indians, and the blacks of Monicongo made me resolve on marrying, so as to provide myself with an heir. Naturally enough, I cast my eyes on Pepita Ximenez, who is not, as you imagine, a limb of Satan, but a lovely creature, as innocent as an angel, and ardent in her nature, rather than coquettish. I have so good an opinion of Pepita that, if she were again sixteen, with a domineering mother who tyrannized over her, and if I were eighty, like Don Gumersindo, that is to say, if death were already knocking at the door, I would marry Pepita, that her smile might cheer me on my death-bed, as if my guardian angel had taken human shape in her; and for the purpose of leaving her my position, my fortune, and my name. But Pepita is not sixteen, but twenty, nor is she now in the power of that serpent, her mother; nor am I eighty, but fifty-five. I am at the very worst age, because I begin to feel myself considerably the worse for wear, with something of asthma, a good deal of cough, rheumatic pains, and other chronic ailments; yet the devil a wish have I to die, notwithstanding! I believe I shall not die for twenty years to come, and, as I am thirty-five years older than Pepita, you may calculate the miserable future that would await her, tied to an old man who would live forever. At the end of a few years of marriage she would be compelled to hate me, notwithstanding her goodness. Doubtless it is because she is good and wise, that she has not chosen to accept me for a husband, notwithstanding the perseverance and the obstinacy with which I have proposed it to her. How much do I not thank her for this now! Even my self-love, wounded by her scorn, is soothed by the reflection that, if she does not love me, at least she loves one of my blood; she is captivated by a son of mine. If this fresh and luxuriant ivy, I say to myself, refuses to twine around the old trunk, worm-eaten already, it climbs by it to reach the new sprout it has put forth—a green and flourishing offshoot. May God bless them both, and make their love prosper! Far from taking the boy to you again, I shall keep him here—by force, if it be necessary. I have determined to conspire against his vocation. I dream already of seeing him married. I shall grow young again, contemplating the handsome pair, joined together by love. And how will it be when they shall have given me a couple of grandchildren? Instead of going as a missionary, and bringing back to me from Australia, or Madagascar, or India, neophytes black as soot, with lips the size of your hand, or yellow as deer-skin, and with eyes like owls, would it not be better for Luisito to preach the gospel in his own house, and to give me a series of little catechumens, fair, rosy, with eyes like those of Pepita, who will resemble cherubim without wings? The catechumens he would bring me from those foreign lands I should have to keep at a respectful distance, in order not to be overpowered by their odor; while those I speak of would seem to me like roses of paradise, and would come to climb up on my knees, and would call me grand-papa, and pat with their little hands the bald spot I am beginning to get. What would you have? When I was in all my vigor, I did not think of domestic joys; but now, that I am approaching old age, if I have not already entered on it, as I have no intention of turning monk, I please myself in thinking that I shall play the rôle of patriarch. And do not imagine, either, that I am going to leave it to time to bring to a happy close this incipient engagement. No! I shall myself set to work to do this. Continuing your comparison, since you transform Pepita into a crucible, and Luis into a metal, I shall find, or rather I have found already, a bellows, or blow-pipe, very well adapted to kindle up the fire, so that the metal may melt in it the more quickly. Antoñona has an understanding with me already, and through her I know that Pepita is over head and ears in love. We have agreed that I shall continue to seem blind to everything, and to know nothing of what passes. The reverend vicar, who is a simple soul, always in the clouds, helps me as much as Antoñona does, or more, and without knowing it, because he repeats to Pepita everything Luis says to him, and everything Pepita says to him to Luis; so that this excellent man, with the weight of half a century in each foot, has been converted—O miracle of love and of innocence!—into a carrier-dove by which the two lovers send each other their flatteries and endearments, while they are as ignorant as he is of the fact. So powerful a combination of natural and artificial methods ought to give an infallible result. You will be made acquainted with this result when I give you notice of the wedding, so that you may come to perform the ceremony, or else send the lovers your blessing and a handsome present."
With these words Don Pedro finished the reading of his letter; and, on looking again at Don Luis, he saw that he had been listening to him with his eyes full of tears.
Father and son gave each other a long and close embrace.
Just a month from the date of this interview, the wedding of Don Luis de Vargas and Pepita Ximenez took place.
The reverend dean—fearing the ridicule of his brother at the spiritual-mindedness of Don Luis having thus come to naught, and recognizing also that he would not play a very dignified rôle in the village, where every one would say he had a poor knack at turning out saints—declined to be present, giving his occupations as an excuse; although he sent his blessing, and a magnificent pair of ear-rings as a present for Pepita.
The reverend vicar, therefore, had the pleasure of marrying her to Don Luis.
The bride, elegantly attired, was thought lovely by every one, and was looked upon as a good exchange for the hair shirt and the scourge.
That night Don Pedro gave a magnificent ball in the court-yard of his house and the contiguous apartments. Servants and gentlemen, nobles and laborers, ladies and country-girls were present, and mingled together, as if it were the ideal golden age—though why called golden I know not. Four skillful, or if not skillful at least indefatigable guitar-players played a fandango. Two gypsies, a man and a woman, both famous singers, sang verses of a tender character and appropriate to the occasion; and the school-master read epithalamium in heroic verse.