"You are referring to Martinez? Poor boy!"
He was giving up the gay society of his comrades, their promenades in company, and even the parties to which the convalescent officers were invited, to come and be bored at Villa Rosa beside a woman who could do nothing but weep. When she wanted to come to church she had to oblige him to go for an hour or two to join his comrades-in-arms in the ante-room at the Casino. The visits of the invalided soldier meant so much to her. They were pure charity on his part.
"I dream that he is my son. His age and his uniform aid in this illusion. You have never had any children; it is impossible for you to know the necessity we feel, when we have lost them, to transfer our bereaved affection to other beings, imagining that they look like those who are gone. I need to go on being a mother, nor can I be anything else; and this unhappy boy never knew his own mother. He has no one in the world, and is as much alone as I am. Please, let me enjoy a little illusion wherever I can find it. The poor fellow is so grateful for my affection! He feels so happy beside me! Remember: he is condemned to death, and only maternal care, and pleasant quiet surroundings, can possibly prolong his days."
She wanted to accomplish this task, perhaps for a selfish reason, to obliterate from her memory, with a great generous deed, all the evil she had done before. She wanted him to be her son, a son born of her grief, to whom she might devote everything that it was now impossible for her to do for her real son.
Now, Michael, too, was silent, realizing the uselessness of insisting any further. He knew Alicia's character. Behind her plaintive voice, he guessed the resolute will to keep by her side that young man who refreshed her maternal feelings and was at the same time a means of consolation for the remorse which she had taken upon herself.
The consideration of his powerlessness finally irritated him, made him feel a cruel desire to hurt that woman.
"You are doing wrong, Alicia. Society is unaware of your secret. You know what people said before about you and your son. You laughed, yourself, finding such a mistake amusing. Now the equivocation continues with more reason. Many people imagine you have substituted another young man for the young man that died."
Alicia lost her sad serenity.
"How disgusting!" she said. "How can they think that. Poor Martinez! He is so good! So respectful!"