“Well, my son, your soul is in your palm,” said Uncle Bartolo, rising. “Remember that there was not wanting a friend to give you good advice—a man of ripe brain, who warned you of the future—for this marriage is going to be the perdition of your house. And, remember what I tell you now, a day is coming when you will have eyes left you only that you may weep.” With these words, Uncle Bartolo went his way.
“Son,” said he to Lucas, who had waited for him in his house, “it was lost labor, as I foretold. But go, now, and mind what I say. Submit to what can’t be helped, and don’t be stiff-necked, for you’ll surely come out loser. The rope breaks where it is slenderest. You are his son, and
the authority belongs to him. You will only be kicking against the goad.”
Lucas went back to the country and to work with a heavy heart. When he returned home on the following Saturday, he learned that the bans of his father’s marriage were to be published the next morning for the first time. Grief made him desperate, and he resolved, as a last recourse, to speak himself.
We have already hinted at the cool and formal relation that existed between these two—thanks to the neglect the abandoned man had shown his children. For some time past, the excellent character of Lucas and the good name it had gained him had inspired Juan Garcia with that bitter sentiment which rises in the heart of a man who possesses the legal and material superiority, against the subordinate to whom he feels himself morally inferior—a sentiment of hostility that is apt to manifest itself in despotism.
“Sir,” said the son, speaking with firm moderation, “they have been telling me that you are going to marry.”
“They have been telling you what is quite true.”
“I hoped that it was not true.”
“And why? if I might ask.”
“On account of the woman they say you are going to have.”