Uncle Bartolo repeated the Angelus, adding a Paternoster for the deceased. And now the grief of the sobbing child in the corner broke forth in bitter crying.
"Stop that, Lucas!" said his father. "You have been going on in that way, hic! hic! like an old woman, for two days. You ought to have gone into the women's room. Let me hear you crying again! You understand?"
"Let me tell you, Juan Garcia," said Uncle Bartolo, "that you are the first man I ever heard rebuke the tears of a son for his mother! You see me, with my years, my beard, and my guerilla life; well, I remember mine, and weep for her still!
"But, uncle, 'frown, and frown again, of a bad son makes a good one.' Lucas here is a regular Marcia Fernandez,[180] brought up in the folds of his mother's skirts. I must teach him that men resist, and do not allow themselves to be overcome by tribulations."
Uncle Bartolo shook his head. "Time and not ointment will cure the patient. If you had died, his mother would not have been the one to rebuke your son for the tears he shed over you."
Juan Garcia continued his former life, abandoning himself with more liberty to the wicked woman of whom the friends of his dead wife had spoken at the condolement. She was called La Leona in allusion to her native island of Leon, where she had married a sergeant, who was afterward sent to serve in America. Like all bad women, La Leona was much worse than men of the same class, inasmuch as, in the subtle organization of woman, the delicacy that is given to her for good turns into a refinement of evil, and her instinctive penetration into malignant sagacity. Not satisfied with having attracted to herself Juan Garcia, who possessed a small patrimony, La Leona, impelled by the bitter envy which a lost woman feels toward one who is honest, undertook to render him indifferent to his wife, and succeeded not only in this, but also in causing him to ill-treat and abandon her. Juan Garcia was a weak man, easily subjugated by those who knew how to obtain an influence over him, and, by way of compensating himself for this complaisance, very obstinate and overbearing in his treatment of others. By degrees, it came to pass that his mistress would not receive him with favor unless he brought her, as an offering, the relation of some act of coldness or cruelty to the victim whose only crime was that of affording, by her right, and by her silent and prudent endurance, the most patent condemnation of the conduct of these two, a condemnation all the more ignominious because of the great purity of manners which prevails in country places. And in order to gain our assertion credit with those who are disposed to accuse us of partiality for the country people, we hasten to say that this purity may naturally be attributed to the wholesome influence of labor, which, in putting indolence to flight, puts to flight with it the vices it generates, and to the blessed poverty, which, being without the means of satisfying them, hinders their birth. Having convinced utilitarians with these reasons, we will add to them others of our own; namely, the salutary ideas of morality and rooted principles of honor that many centuries of Catholicism have fixed in the hearts of these people—principles renewed, in each successive generation, by the unchanging zeal that is the property of religion, and that never wearies or grows lukewarm.
Like all other general rules, the above has its exceptions. Juan Garcia furnished one. His unkindness, united with the grief and shame his conduct caused her, had certainly hastened the death of poor Ana, whose last act of affection as a wife, and duty as a Christian, had been to forgive him. Alas! the soul of the husband was so deeply mired that even this saintly death could awaken in it neither pity nor remorse. Not that he was utterly perverse, but his eyes, like those of many another in this world of error, were covered by one of those veils which must fall on the day of God's judgment, when the light of truth will be the first punishment that awaits the willingly blind.
His boy and girl remained orphaned and neglected, and would have been entirely forsaken but for that active charity which makes women constitute themselves fervent protectors of the helpless and severe judges of the wrong-doer. The wives of Juan's neighbors took care of the children, and obliged him to feed and clothe them, freely casting in his face his evil conduct, while, with imperturbable coolness, they prescribed to him his obligations.
Ah charity!—some proclaim and others comprehend thee; some would guide thee, and thou guidest others! Why art thou not found in the palaces that philanthropy builds for thee? Why dost thou appear in all thy brightness in the dwellings of the poor, delighting thyself with the widow's farthing? It is because thou wilt be queen and not a slave!