He supported his oath without fear by the sacrosanct testimony of his ideas, for in fact he had seen nothing, and having seen nothing, he reasoned logically in the pride of his perspicuity and wisdom, that nothing wrong could have occurred.
"I think they are nothing more than friends ... now.... If there has been anything before, I know not.... The people here ... talk. They invent so many lies. But pay no attention, Señora Carmen. Live happily, that is the best thing!"
But she insisted. What had happened at the farm? The grange was her home, and she was indignant, as, joined to the infidelity, this seemed to her a sacrilege, a direct insult to herself.
"Do you think me a fool, Sebastian? I have seen it all along. From the first moment he began to think of that lady ... or whatever she is, I have known what Juan was thinking. The day he pledged the bull to her, and she gave him that diamond ring, I guessed what there was between the two, and I should have liked to snatch the ring and trample on it.... Very soon I knew everything. Everything! There are always people ready to carry rumours because it hurts others. Besides, they have never hidden themselves, going everywhere like man and wife, in the sight of every one, on horseback, just like gipsies who ride from fair to fair. When we were at the farm I had news of everything Juan was doing, and afterwards in San Lucar also."
El Nacional interposed, seeing Carmen so upset, and weeping at these recollections.
"My good woman, do you believe all this humbug? Do you not see they are inventions of people who wish you ill? All jealousy, nothing more."
"No, I know Juan. Do you believe that this is the first? He is as he is, and cannot be otherwise. Cursed profession, which seems to send men mad! After we had been married two years he fell in love with a handsome girl in the market, a butcher's daughter. How I suffered when I knew it.... But I never said a word. Even now he thinks I know nothing. Since then how many have there been? I do not know how many—dozens—and I held my tongue, wishing for peace in my home. But this woman is not like the others, Juan is mad about her; and I know he has lowered himself a thousand times, remembering that she is a great lady, so that she should not turn him out, being ashamed of having relations with a torero. Now she is gone. You did not know it? She is gone because she was bored in Seville. You see people tell me everything, and she left without saying good-bye to him. When he went there the other day he found the door locked. Now he is as wretched as a sick horse, he goes among his friends with a face like a funeral, and drinks to enliven himself. No, he cannot forget that woman. He was proud of being loved by a woman of that class, and now he suffers in his pride that he is abandoned. Ay! what disgust I feel. He is no longer my husband; he seems like some one else. We scarcely speak. I am alone upstairs, he sleeps downstairs in one of the patio rooms. Before, I overlooked everything; they were bad habits belonging to the profession: the mania of toreros, who think themselves irresistible to women ... but now I can't bear to see him; I feel repugnance towards him."
She spoke energetically, and a flame of hate shone in her eyes.
"Ay! that woman. How she has changed him!... He is another man! He only cares now to go with rich people; and the people in the suburbs, and the poor in Seville, who were his friends and helped him when he first began, all complain of him; some fine day they will start a disturbance against him in the Plaza to disgrace him. Money comes in here by bucketsful, and it is not easy to count it. He himself does not know how much he has, but I see clearly. He plays heavily, so that his new friends may welcome him; and he loses largely; the money comes in by one door and goes out by the other. But I say nothing. After all it is he that earns it. He has had to borrow from Don José for things about the farm, and some olive yards he bought this year to join to the property were bought with other people's money. Almost all he earns during the next season will go to pay his debts. And if he had an accident. If he found himself obliged to retire like others? He has tried to change me, as he himself has changed. I know he feels ashamed of us when he returns from seeing Doña Sol. It is he who has obliged me to put on those unbecoming hats from Madrid, that make me feel like a monkey dancing on an organ! And a mantilla is so beautiful! He also it is who has bought that infernal car, in which I go in fear and which smells like the devil. If he could he would even put a hat with a cock's tail on the little mother's head!"