Father Peter quieted the child in his wild imaginations, until he fell asleep again.
The sound of a harp and passionate songs of love floated through the night air. Father Peter left the child's room with agitated feelings, and hurried along the corridors to the balcony where Idalia confided her heart's sorrow to the forest and the stars. The sound of his step aroused the lady from her dreams. She looked at him in surprise as he approached. Father Peter took her by the hand, and drew her into the room. Idalia's heart began to beat violently. She thought that the hand which he now laid on her shoulder would draw her to his breast, until now ice, now melted by the volcanic glow of her love.
"Kneel down," said the priest, "Confess your sin at once."
"What sin? You know all," murmured the woman, while she sank down under the iron pressure of his hand.
"Your past that as yet has no name—what you carry about in your heart—that monster must be stifled while it still exists only as a thought. What is this thought of yours?"
The woman was silent for a time, meditating contradiction and crafty evasion, but at length she yielded and said in a whisper, "I intended to kill my child."
"Cursed be the heart in which such a thought could arise."
"If my heart is the mother of this monster, yours is the father; such devils result when fire and frost come together."
"Are you mindful of God and the future life?"
"Don't speak to me of God or of the future life! When I go there, and see God face to face, I shall say: I am the one—I did it! Hadst Thou given me cold blood, I might have been a frog, but thou gavest me warm blood, and I became a human being. Hadst Thou created me man, I might have been a Cain; Thou hast made me a woman, and I have become an Eve. In this way didst Thou fashion my woman's heart; it was Thou that didst create my passions, that didst make my eye a magnet, that didst give my lips their charm; it is Thou that dost send thoughts to the wakeful, and dreams to the sleeping; and now wilt Thou condemn Thy own creation unheard? If Thou art my Creator, Thou didst create me thus; if Thou art all-knowing, Thou knewest this before."