"Are you sick, my son?" asked Anna.
"No, mother," he replied.
The supper was finished in silence, and when Elvira had gone out, carrying the plates, Perico abruptly said to his mother:
"Mother, I am going to Utrera tomorrow to enlist with the loyal Spanish who are preparing to defend the country."
Anna was thunderstruck. Accustomed to the docile obedience of her son, who had never failed to keep his word, she said to him:
"To the war? That is to say that you are going to abandon us. But it cannot be! You must not do it! You ought not to leave your mother and sister, and I will not give my consent."
"Mother," said the young man, exasperated, "it is seen that you always have something to oppose to my desires; you have subjected my will, and now you wish to fetter my arm; but mother," he proceeded, growing excited, and impelled by the two greatest motives which can rule a man--patriotism in all its purity, and love in all its ardor, "mother, I am twenty-two years old, and I have besides strength enough and will enough, to break away if you force me to it."
Anna, as much astonished as terrified, clapped her cold and trembling hands in agony, exclaiming:
"What! is there no alternative between a marriage which will make you wretched and the war which will cost you your life?"
"None, mother," said Perico, drawn out of his natural character, and hardened by the dread that he should yield in the contest now fairly entered upon. "Either I remain to marry, or I go to fulfil the duty of every young Spaniard."