CHAPTER VI.
The arrival of Marcela caused great joy to all except Rita, who neither wished nor tried to hide the ill-humor she felt in the presence of one who had been destined by both families to be the wife of Perico.
This hostile disposition, and the cold reserve which Rita imposed upon Perico in his intercourse with Marcela, were the first frosts which had ever fallen upon the springtime of that pure spirit.
Marcela was far from suspecting the base and bitter sentiments of Rita, and besides, she would not have understood them; for, though a young woman, she had the soul of a child. Having lived in the convent from her birth, she had created for herself a sweet existence, which could not be enlarged by the interests and passions of life, except at the cost of innocence and happiness. She loved her good religious, her garden, her gentle and peaceful duties. She was attached to her devotions, to her church, and to her blessed images. She wished to be a nun, not from spiritual exaltation, but because she liked the life; not from misanthropy, but with joy of heart; not because she was without convenient place or position in the world, which many believe to be a motive for taking the veil, but because her position, her place, she found--and preferred it--in the convent.
This is what many do not, or pretend not to comprehend. Everything can be understood in this world; all vices; all irregularities; all the most atrocious inclinations; even the propensity of the Anthropophagi; but that the desire for a tranquil and retired life, without care for the present, or thought for the future, can exist, is denied, is incomprehensible.
In the world everything is believed in--the masculine woman, the morality of stealing, the philanthropy of the guillotine, in the inhabitants of the moon, and other humbugs, as the English say; or canards, as our neighbors have it; or bubbles and fables, as we call them. The satirical sceptic, called the world, has a throat [{512}] down which all these can pass, for there is nothing so credulous as incredulity, nor so superstitious as irreligion. But it does not believe in the instincts of purity, in modest desires, in humble hearts, and in religious sentiments. No indeed; the existence of these is all humbug, a bubble which it cannot receive. This monster has not a throat wide enough for these.
Marcela, accompanied by Anna and Elvira, made her first visit to the church, and to the chapel of Saint Anna, into which the good wife of the sacristan hastened to lead them.
The chapel is deep and narrow; at the extremity is an altar and the effigy of the saint. In a crystal urn, inserted into the altar, is seen a wooden cross and a small bell. The effigy of Saint Anna is very ancient; its lower part widens in the form of a bell, upon its breast it bears an image of the Blessed Virgin, which in the same manner bears that of the child Jesus. The remote origin stamped upon this effigy, uniting antiquity of idea with age of material, gives, as it were, wings to the devotion it inspires with which to rise and free itself from all present surroundings. On the wall, at the right hand, hang two large pictures. In one is seen an angel, appearing to two girls, and in the other the same girls, in a wild and solitary place, with a man who is digging a hole in the earth.
On the left hand an iron railing surrounds the entrance to a cave, the descent into which is by a narrow stairway.
Marcela and her companions having performed their devotions, seated themselves in some low chairs which the sacristan's wife placed for them under the arbor in the court-yard, and Marcela asked the obliging and kindly woman to explain to them the two pictures which they had seen in the chapel. The good creature, who loved to tell the story, began it very far back, and related it in the following words.