PEPITA XIMENEZ
FROM THE SPANISH OF
JUAN VALERA
_WITH AN INTRODUCTION_
BY THE AUTHOR
WRITTEN SPECIALLY FOR THIS EDITION
NEW YORK
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY 1886
COPYRIGHT, 1886,
BY D. APPLETON AND COMPANY.
AUTHOR'S PREFACE TO THE AMERICAN EDITION.
_To the Messrs. Appleton._
GENTLEMEN: It was my intention to write a preface for the purpose of
authorizing the edition you are about to publish in English of "Pepita
Ximenez"; but, on thinking the matter over, I was deterred by the
recollection of an anecdote that I heard in my young days.
A certain gallant, wishing to be presented at the house of a rich man
who was about to give a magnificent ball, availed himself for that
purpose of the services of a friend, who boasted of his familiarity with
the great man, and of the favor he enjoyed with him. They proceeded to
the great man's house, and the gallant got his introduction; but the
great man said to him who had introduced the other, "And you, who is to
introduce you, for I am not acquainted with you?" As I entertain a
profound respect and affection for this country, and have not, besides,
the assurance that such an occasion would require, it would not do for
me to say what the _introducer_ of my story is said to have answered,
"I need no one to introduce or to recommend me, for I am just now going
away."
I infer from my story, as its evident moral, that I ought to refrain
from addressing the public of the United States, to which I am entirely
unknown as an author, notwithstanding the fact of my having maintained
pleasant and friendly relations with its Government as the
representative of my own.
The most judicious and prudent course I can adopt, then, is to limit
myself to returning you earnest thanks for asking from me an
authorization of which you did not stand in need, either by law or by
treaty, for wishing to make known to your countrymen the least insipid
of the products of my unfruitful genius, and for your generous purpose
of conceding to me author's rights.
This, however, does not preclude the fact that, in thus expressing my
thanks to you publicly, I incur a responsibility which I did not assume
on any other occasion, either in Germany, Italy, or any other country
where my works have been translated; for then, if they failed to please
the public, although the fact might pain me, I could still shrug my
shoulders, and throw the blame of failure on the translator, or the
publisher; but in this case I make myself your accomplice, and share, or
rather receive, all the disgrace of failure, if failure there should be.
"Pepita Ximenez" has enjoyed a wide celebrity, not only in Spain, but in
every other Spanish-speaking country. I am very far from thinking that
we Spaniards of the present day are either more easily satisfied, less
cultured than, or possessed of an inferior literary taste to, the
inhabitants of any other region of the globe; but this does not suffice
to dispel my misgivings that my novel may be received with indifference
or with censure by a public somewhat prejudiced against Spain by
fanciful and injurious preconceptions.
My novel, both in essence and form, is distinctively national and
classic. Its merit--supposing it to have such--consists in the language
and the style, and not in the incidents, which are of the most
commonplace, or in the plot, which, if it can be said to have any, is of
the simplest.
The characters are not wanting, as I think, in individuality, or in such
truth to human nature as makes them seem like living beings; but, the
action being so slight, this is brought out and made manifest by means
of a subtile analysis, and by the language chosen to express the
emotions, both which may in the translation be lost. There is, besides,
in my novel a certain irony, good-humored and frank, and a certain
humor, resembling rather the humor of the English than the _esprit_ of
the French, which qualities, although happily they do not depend upon
puns, or a play upon words, but are in the subject itself, require, in
order that they may appear in the translation, that this should be made
with extreme care.
In conclusion, the chief cause of the extraordinary favor with which
"Pepita Ximenez" was received in Spain is something that may fail to be
noticed here by careless readers.
I am an advocate of art for art's sake. I think it in very bad taste,
always impertinent, and often pedantic, to attempt to prove theses by
writing stories. For such a purpose dissertations or books purely and
severely didactic should be written. The object of a novel should be to
charm, through a faithful representation of human actions and human
passions, and to create by this fidelity to nature a beautiful work. The
object of art is the creation of the beautiful, and whoever applies it
to any other end, of however great utility this end may be, debases it.
But it may chance, through a conjunction of favorable circumstances, by
a happy inspiration, because in a given moment everything is, disposed
as by enchantment, or by supernatural influences, that an author's soul
may become like a clear and magic mirror wherein are reflected all the
ideas and all the sentiments that animate the eclectic spirit of his
country, and in which these ideas and these sentiments lose their
discordance, and group and combine themselves in pleasing agreement and
harmony.
Herein is the explanation of the interest of "Pepita Ximenez." It was
written when Spain was agitated to its center, and everything was thrown
out of its regular course by a radical revolution that at the same time
shook to their foundations the throne and religions unity. It was
written when everything in fusion, like molten metal, might readily
amalgamate, and be molded into new forms. It was written when the strife
raged fiercest between ancient and modern ideals; and, finally, it was
written in all the plenitude of my powers, when my soul was sanest and
most joyful in the possession of an enviable optimism and an
all-embracing love and sympathy for humanity that, to my misfortune, can
never again find place within my breast.
If I had endeavored by dialectics and by reasoning to conciliate
opinions and beliefs, the disapprobation would have been general; but,
as the conciliating and syncretic spirit manifested itself naturally in
a diverting story, every one accepted and approved it, each one drawing
from my book the conclusions that best suited himself. Thus it was that,
from the most orthodox Jesuit father down to the most rabid
revolutionist, and from the ultra-Catholic who cherishes the dream of
restoring the Inquisition, to the rationalist who is the irreconcilable
enemy of every religion, all were pleased with "Pepita Ximenez."
It would be curious, and not inopportune, to explain here how it came
about that I succeeded in pleasing every one without intending it,
without knowing it, and, as it were, by chance.
There was in Spain, some years ago, a conservative minister who had sent
a godson of his to study philosophy in Germany. By rare good fortune
this godson, who was called Julián Sanz del Río, was a man of clear and
profound intelligence, of unwearied application, and endowed with all
the qualities necessary to make of him a sort of apostle. He studied, he
formulated his system, he obtained the chair of metaphysics in the
University of Madrid, and he founded a school, from which has since
issued a brilliant pleiad of philosophers and statesmen, and of men
illustrious for their learning, their eloquence, and their virtues.
Chief among them are Nicolás Salmerón, Francisco Giner, Gumersindo
Azcárate, Federico de Castro, and Urbano González Serrano.
The clerical party soon began to stir up strife against the master, the
scholars, and the doctrines taught by them. They accused them of
mystical pantheism.
I, who had ridiculed, at times, the confused terms, the pomp of words,
and the method which the new philosophers made use of, regarded these
philosophers, nevertheless, with admiration, and took up their
defense--an almost solitary champion--in periodicals and reviews.
I had already maintained, before this, that our great dogmatic
theologians, and especially the celebrated Domingo de Soto, were more
liberal than the liberal rationalists of the present day, affirming, as
they do, the sovereignty of the people by divine right; for if, as St.
Paul declares, all authority proceeds from God, it does so through the
medium of the people whom God inspires to found it; and because the only
authority that proceeds directly from God is that of the Church.
I then set myself to demonstrate that, if Sanz del Río and his followers
were pantheists, our mystical theologians of the sixteenth and
seventeenth centuries were pantheists also; and that, if the former had
for predecessors Fichte, Schelling, Hegel, and Krause, St. Theresa, St.
John de la Cruz, and the inspired and ecstatic Father Miguel de la
Fuente followed, as their model, Tauler and others of the Germans. In
saying this, however, it was not my intention to deny the claims of any
of these mystical writers as founders of their school in Spain, but only
to recognize, in this unbroken transmission of doctrine, the progressive
continuity of European civilization.
For the purpose of carrying forward my undertaking, I read and studied
with ardor every Spanish book on devotion, asceticism, and mysticism
that fell into my hands, growing every day more charmed with the
richness of our literature in such works; with the treasures of poetry
contained in them; with the boldness and independence of their authors;
with the profound and delicate observation, in which they excel the
Scotch school, that they display in examining the faculties of the soul;
and with their power of entering into themselves, of penetrating to the
very center of the mind, in order there to behold God, and to unite
themselves with God, not therefore losing their own personality, or
their capacity for an active life, but issuing from the ecstasies and
ravishments of divine love more apt than before for every work that can
benefit the human species, as the steel is more finely tempered,
polished, and bright after it has burned in the fires of the forge.
Of all this, on its most poetic and easily understood side, I wished to
give a specimen to the Spanish public of to-day, who had forgotten it;
but, as I was a man of my epoch, a layman, not very exemplary as regards
penitential practices, and had the reputation of a freethinker, I did
not venture to undertake doing this in my own name, and I created a
theological student who should do it in his. I then fancied that I could
paint with more vividness the ideas and the feelings of this student by
contrasting them with an earthly love; and this was the origin of
"Pepita Ximenez." Thus, when it was farthest from my thoughts, did I
become a novelist. My novel had, therefore, the freshness and the
spontaneity of the unpremeditated.
The novels I wrote afterward, with premeditation, are inferior to this
one.
"Pepita Ximenez" pleased the public also, as I have said, by its
transcendentalism.
The rationalists supposed that I had rejected the old ideals, as my hero
casts off the clerical garb. And the believers, with greater unanimity
and truth, compared me to the false prophet who went forth to curse the
people of Israel, and without intending it exalted and blessed them.
What is certain is that, if it be allowable to draw any conclusion from
a story, the inference that may be deduced from mine is, that faith in
an all-seeing and personal God, and in the lore of this God, who is
present in the depths of the soul, even when we refuse to follow the
higher vocation to which he would persuade and solicit us--even were we
carried away by the violence of mundane passions to commit, like Don
Luis, almost all the capital sins in a single day--elevates the soul,
purifies the other emotions, sustains human dignity, and lends poetry,
nobility, and holiness to the commonest state, condition, and manner of
life.
Such is, in my opinion, the novel you are now about to present to the
American public; for I repeat that I have not the right to make the
presentation.
Perhaps, independent of its transcendentalism, my novel may serve to
interest and amuse your public for a couple of hours, and may obtain
some favor with it; for it is a public that reads a great deal, that is
indulgent, and that differs from the English public--which is eminently
exclusive in its tastes--by its generous and cosmopolitan spirit.
I have always regarded as a delusion of national vanity the belief that
there is, or the hope that there ever will be, anything that, with
legitimate and candid independence, may be called American literature.
Greece diffused herself throughout the world in nourishing colonies,
and, after the conquests of Alexander, founded powerful states in Egypt,
in Syria, and even in Bactriana, among peoples who, unlike the American
Indians, possessed a high civilization of their own. But,
notwithstanding this dispersion, and this political severance from the
mother-country, the literature of Syracuse, of Antioch, and of
Alexandria was as much Greek literature as was the literature of Athens.
In my opinion, then, and for the same reason, the literature of New York
and Boston will continue to be as much English literature as the
literature of London and Edinburgh; the literature of Mexico and Buenos
Ayres will continue to be as much Spanish literature as the literature
of Madrid; the literature of Rio Janeiro will be as much Portuguese
literature as the literature of Lisbon. Political union may be severed,
but, between peoples of the same tongue and the same race, the ties of
spiritual fraternity are indissoluble, so long as their common
civilization lasts. There are immortal kings or emperors who reign and
rule in America by true divine right, and against whom no Washington or
Bolivar shall prevail--no Franklin succeed in plucking from them their
scepter. These tyrants are called Miguel de Cervantes, William
Shakespeare, and Luiz de Camoëns.
All this does not prevent the new nation from bringing to the common
fund, and _pro indiviso_, of the culture of their race, rich elements,
fine traits of character, and perhaps even higher qualities. Thus it is
that I observe, in this American literature, of English origin and
language, a certain largeness of views, a certain cosmopolitanism and
affectionate comprehension of what is foreign, broad as the continent
itself which the Americans inhabit, and which forms a contrast to the
narrow exclusivism of the insular English. It is because of these
qualities that I venture to hope now for a favorable reception of my
little book; and it is in these qualities that I found my hope that the
fruits of Spanish genius in general will, in future, be better known and
more highly esteemed here than in Great Britain.
Already, to some extent, Irving, Prescott, Ticknor, Longfellow, Howells,
and others have contributed, with judgment and discretion, translating,
criticising, and eulogizing our authors, to the realization of this
hope.
Forgive my wearying you with this long letter, and believe me to be
sincerely yours,
JUAN VALERA.
NEW YORK, _April 18, 1886._
CONTENTS
PAGE
LETTER OF THE AUTHOR iii
PEPITA XIMENEZ 1
I--LETTERS OF MY NEPHEW 4
II.--PARALIPOMENA 129
III.--EPILOGUE. (LETTERS OF MY BROTHER) 263
PEPITA XIMENEZ
"_Nescit labi virtus._"
The reverend Dean of the Cathedral of ------, deceased a few years since,
left among his papers a bundle of manuscript, tied together, which,
passing from hand to hand, finally fell into mine, without, by some
strange chance, having lost a single one of the documents contained in
it. Inscribed on this manuscript were the Latin words I use above as a
motto, but without the addition of the woman's name I now prefix to it
as its title; and this inscription has probably contributed to the
preservation of the papers, since, thinking them, no doubt, to be
sermons, or other theological matter, no one before me had made any
attempt to untie the string of the package, or to read a single page of
it.
The manuscript is in three parts. The first is entitled "Letters from my
Nephew"; the second, "Paralipomena"; and the third, "Epilogue--Letters
from my Brother."
All three are in the same handwriting, which, it may be inferred, is
that of the reverend dean; and, as taken together they form something
like a novel, I at first thought that perhaps the reverend dean wished
to exercise his genius in composing one in his leisure hours; but,
looking at the matter more closely, and observing the natural simplicity
of the style, I am inclined to think now that it is no novel at all, but
that the letters are copies of genuine epistles which the reverend dean
tore up, burned, or returned to their owners, and that the narrative
part only, designated by the biblical title of "Paralipomena," is the
work of the reverend dean, added for the purpose of completing the story
with incidents not related in the letters.
However this may be, I confess that I did not find the reading of these
papers tiresome; I found them, indeed, rather interesting than
otherwise; and as nowadays everything is published, I have decided to
publish them too, without further investigation, changing only the
proper names, so that if those who bear them be still living they may
not find themselves figuring in a book without desiring or consenting to
it.
The letters contained in the first part seem to have been written by a
very young man, with some theoretical but no practical knowledge of the
world, whose life was passed in the house of the reverend dean, his
uncle, and in the seminary, and who was imbued with an exalted religious
fervor and an earnest desire to be a priest.
We shall call this young man Don Luis de Vargas.
The aforesaid manuscript, faithfully transferred to print, is as
follows.
I.
LETTERS FROM MY NEPHEW.
_March 22d._
DEAR UNCLE AND VENERABLE MASTER:
Four days ago I arrived in safety at this my native village, where I
found my father, the reverend vicar, our friends and relations all in
good health. The happiness of seeing them and conversing with them has
so completely occupied my time and thoughts, that I have not been able
to write to you until now.
You will pardon me for this.
Having left this place a mere child, and coming back a man, the
impression produced upon me by all those objects that I had treasured up
in my memory is a singular one. Everything appears to me more
diminutive, much more diminutive, but also more pleasing to the eye,
than my recollection of it. My father's house, which in my imagination
was immense, is, indeed, the large house of a rich husbandman, but still
much smaller than the seminary. What I now understand and appreciate
better than formerly is the country around here. The orchards, above
all, are delightful. What charming paths there are through them! On one
side, and sometimes on both, crystal waters flow with a pleasant murmur.
The banks of these streams are covered with odorous herbs and flowers of
a thousand different hues. In a few minutes one may gather a large bunch
of violets. The paths are shaded by majestic trees, chiefly walnut and
fig trees; and the hedges are formed of blackberry-bushes, roses,
pomegranates, and honeysuckle.
The multitude of birds that enliven grove and field is marvelous.
I am enchanted with the orchards, and I spend a couple of hours walking
in them every afternoon.
My father wishes to take me to see his olive-plantations, his vineyards,
his farm-houses; but of all this we have as yet seen nothing. I have not
been outside of the village and the charming orchards that surround it.
It is true, indeed, that the numerous visits I receive do not leave me a
moment to myself.
Five different women have come to see me, all of whom were my nurses,
and have embraced and kissed me.
Every one calls me Luisito, or Don Pedro's boy, although I have passed
my twenty-second birthday; and every one inquires of my father for _the
boy_, when I am not present.
I imagine I shall make but little use of the books I have brought with
me to read, as I am not left alone for a single instant.
The dignity of squire, which I supposed to be a matter for jest, is, on
the contrary, a serious matter. My father is the squire of the village.
There is hardly any one here who can understand what they call my
caprice of entering the priesthood, and these good people tell me, with
rustic candor, that I ought to throw aside the clerical garb; that to be
a priest is very well for a poor young man, but that I, who am to be a
rich man's heir, should marry, and console the old age of my father by
giving him half a dozen handsome and robust grandchildren.
In order to flatter my father and myself, both men and women declare
that I am a splendid fellow, that I am of an angelic disposition, that I
have a very roguish pair of eyes, and other stupid things of a like kind
that annoy, disgust, and humiliate me, although I am not very modest,
and am too well acquainted with the meanness and folly of the world to
be shocked or frightened at anything.
The only defect they find in me is that I am too thin through
over-study. In order to have me grow fat they propose not to allow me
either to study or even to look at a book while I remain here; and,
besides this, to make me eat of as many choice dishes of meats and
confectionery as they know how to concoct in the village.
It is quite clear--I am to be stall-fed. There is not a single family of
our acquaintance that has not sent me some token of regard. Now it is a
sponge-cake, now a meat-salad, now a pyramid of sweetmeats, now a jug of
sirup.
And these presents which they send to the house are not the only
attentions they show me. I have also been invited to dinner by three or
four of the principal persons of the village.
To-morrow I am to dine at the house of the famous Pepita Ximenez, of
whom you have doubtless heard. No one here is ignorant of the fact that
my father is paying her his addresses.
My father, notwithstanding his fifty-five years, is so well preserved
that the finest young men of the village might feel envious of him. He
possesses, besides, the powerful attraction, irresistible to some women,
of his past conquests, of his celebrity, of having been a sort of Don
Juan Tenorio.
I have not yet made the acquaintance of Pepita Ximenez. Every one says
she is very beautiful. I suspect she will turn out to be a village
beauty, and somewhat rustic. From what I have heard of her I can not
quite decide whether, ethically speaking, she is good or bad; but I am
quite certain that she is possessed of great natural intelligence.
Pepita is about twenty years old and a widow; her married life lasted
only three years. She was the daughter of Doña Francisca Galvez, the
widow, as you know, of a retired captain
"Who left her at his death,
As sole inheritance, his honorable sword,"
as the poet says. Until her sixteenth year Pepita lived with her mother
in very straitened circumstances--bordering, indeed, upon absolute want.
She had an uncle called Don Gumersindo, the possessor of a small
entailed estate, one of those petty estates that, in olden times, owed
their foundation to a foolish vanity. Any ordinary person, with the
income derived from this estate, would have lived in continual
difficulties, burdened by debts, and altogether cut off from the display
and ceremony proper to his rank. But Don Gumersindo was an extraordinary
person--the very genius of economy. It could not be said of him that he
created wealth himself, but he was endowed with a wonderful faculty of
absorption with respect to the wealth of others; and, in regard to
dispensing, it would be difficult to find any one on the face of the
globe with whose maintenance, preservation, and comfort, Mother Nature
and human industry ever had less reason to trouble themselves. No one
knows how he lived; but the fact is that he reached the age of eighty
years, saving his entire income, and adding to his capital by lending
money on unquestionable security. No one here speaks of him as a usurer;
on the contrary, he is considered to have been of a charitable
disposition, because, being moderate in all things, he was so even in
usury; and would ask only ten per cent a year, while throughout the
district they ask twenty and even thirty per cent, and still think it
little.
In the practice of this species of industry and economy, and with
thoughts dwelling constantly on increasing instead of diminishing his
capital, indulging neither in the luxury of matrimony and of having a
family, nor even of smoking, Don Gumersindo arrived at the age I have
mentioned, the possessor of a fortune considerable anywhere, and here
regarded as enormous, thanks to the poverty of these villagers, and to
the habit of exaggeration natural to the Andalusians.
Don Gumersindo, always extremely neat and clean in his person, was an
old man who did not inspire repugnance.
The articles of his modest wardrobe were somewhat worn, but carefully
brushed, and without a stain; although from time immemorial he had
always been seen with the same cloak, the same jacket, and the same
trousers and waistcoat. People sometimes asked each other in vain if
any one had ever seen, him wear a new garment.
With all these defects, which here and elsewhere many regard as virtues,
though virtues in excess, Don Gumersindo possessed excellent qualities;
he was affable, obliging, compassionate, and did his utmost to please
and to be of service to everybody, no matter what trouble, anxiety, or
fatigue it might cost him, provided only it did not cost him money. Of a
cheerful disposition, and fond of fun and joking, he was to be found at
every feast and merry-making around, that was not got up by
contribution, which he enlivened by the amenity of his manners, and by
his discreet although not very Attic conversation. He had never had any
tender inclination for any one woman in particular, but, innocently and
without malice, he loved them all; and was the most given to
complimenting the girls, and making them laugh, of any old man for ten
leagues around.
I have already said that he was the uncle of Pepita. When he was nearing
his eightieth year, she was about to complete her sixteenth. He was
rich; she, poor and friendless.
Her mother was a vulgar woman of limited intelligence and coarse
instincts. She worshiped her daughter, yet lamented continually and with
bitterness the sacrifices she made for her, the privations she
suffered, and the disconsolate old age and melancholy end that awaited
her in the midst of her poverty. She had, besides, a son, older than
Pepita, who had a well-deserved reputation in the village as a gambler
and a quarrelsome fellow, and for whom, after many difficulties, she had
succeeded in obtaining an insignificant employment in Havana; thus
finding herself rid of him, and with the sea between them. After he had
been a few years in Havana, however, he lost his situation on account of
his bad conduct, and thereupon began to shower letters upon his mother,
containing demands for money. The latter, who had scarcely enough for
herself and for Pepita, grew desperate at this, broke out into abuse,
cursed herself and her destiny with a perseverance but little resembling
the evangelical virtue, and ended by fixing all her hopes upon settling
her daughter well, as the only way of getting out of her difficulties.
In this distressing situation Don Gumersindo began to frequent the house
of Pepita and her mother, and to pay attentions to the former with more
ardor and persistence than he had shown in his attentions to other
girls. Nevertheless, to suppose that a man who had passed his eightieth
year without wishing to marry, should think of committing such a folly,
with one foot already in the grave, was so wild and improbable a
notion, that Pepita's mother, still less Pepita herself, never for a
moment suspected the audacious intentions of Don Gumersindo. Thus it was
that both were struck, one day, with amazement, when, after a good many
compliments between jest and earnest, Don Gumersindo, with the greatest
seriousness and without the least hesitation, proposed the following
categorical question:
"Pepita, will you marry me?"
Although the question came at the end of a great deal of joking, and
might itself be taken for a joke, Pepita, who, inexperienced though she
was in worldly matters, yet knew by a certain instinct of divination
that is in all women, and especially in young girls, no matter how
innocent they may be, that this was said in earnest, grew as red as a
cherry and said nothing. Her mother answered in her stead:
"Child, don't be ill-bred; answer your uncle as you should: 'With much
pleasure, uncle; whenever you wish.'"
This "with much pleasure, uncle--whenever you wish," came then, it is
said, and many times afterward, almost mechanically from the trembling
lips of Pepita, in obedience to the admonitions, the sermons, the
complaints, and even the imperious mandate of her mother.
I see, however, that I am enlarging too much on this matter of Pepita
Ximenez and her history; but she interests me, as I suppose she should
interest you too, since, if what they affirm here be true, she is to be
your sister-in-law and my step-mother. I shall endeavor,
notwithstanding, to avoid dwelling on details, and to relate briefly
what perhaps you already know, though you have been away from here so
long.
Pepita Ximenez was married to Don Gumersindo. The tongue of slander was
let loose against her, both in the days preceding the wedding and for
some months afterward.
In point of fact, ethically considered, this marriage was a matter that
will admit of discussion; but, so far as the girl herself is concerned,
if we remember her mother's prayers, her complaints, and even her
commands--if we take into consideration the fact that Pepita thought by
this means to procure for her mother a comfortable old age, and to save
her brother from dishonor and infamy, constituting herself his guardian
angel and his earthly providence, we must confess that our condemnation
will admit of some abatement. Besides, who shall penetrate into the
recesses of the heart, into the hidden secrets of the immature mind of a
young girl brought up, probably, in the most absolute seclusion and
ignorance of the world, in order to know what idea she might have formed
to herself of marriage? Perhaps she thought that to marry this old man
meant to devote her life to his service, to be his nurse, to soothe his
old age; to save him from a solitude and abandonment embittered by his
infirmities, and in which only mercenary hands should minister to him;
in a word, to cheer and illumine his declining years with the glowing
beams of her beauty and her youth, like an angel who has taken human
form. If something of this, or all of this, was what the girl thought,
and if she failed to perceive the full significance of her act, then its
morality is placed beyond question.
However this may be, leaving aside psychological investigations that I
have no authority for making, since I am not acquainted with Pepita
Ximenez, it is quite certain that she lived in edifying harmony with the
old man during three years, that she nursed him and waited upon him with
admirable devotion, and that in his last painful and fatal sickness she
ministered to him and watched over him with tender and unwearying
affection, until he expired in her arms, leaving her heiress to a large
fortune.
Although more than two years have passed since she lost her mother, and
more than a year and a half since she was left a widow, Pepita still
wears the deepest mourning. Her sedateness, her retired manner of
living, and her melancholy, are such that one might suppose she lamented
the death of her husband as much as though he had been a handsome young
man. Perhaps there are some who imagine or suspect that Pepita's pride,
and the certain knowledge she now has of the not very poetical means by
which she has become rich, trouble her conscience with something more
than doubt; and that, humiliated in her own eyes and in those of the
world, she seeks, in austerity and retirement, consolation for the
vexations of her mind, and balm for her wounded heart.
People here, as everywhere, have a great love of money. Perhaps I am
wrong in saying, _as everywhere_; in populous cities, in the great
centers of civilization, there are other distinctions which are prized
as much as or even more than money, because they smooth the way to
fortune, and give credit and consideration in the eyes of the world; but
in smaller places, where neither literary nor scientific fame, nor, as a
rule, distinction of manners, nor elegance, nor discretion and amenity
in intercourse, are apt to be either valued or understood, there is no
other way by which to grade the social hierarchy than the possession of
more or less money, or of something worth money. Pepita, then, in the
possession of money, and beauty besides, and making a good use, as every
one says, of her riches, is to-day respected and esteemed in an
extraordinary degree. From this and the surrounding villages, the most
eligible suitors, the wealthiest young men, have crowded to pay their
court to her. But, so far as can be seen, she rejects them all, though
with the utmost sweetness, for she wishes to make no one her enemy; and
it is commonly supposed that her soul is filled with the most ardent
devotion, and that it is her fixed intention to dedicate her life to
practices of charity and religious piety.
My father, according to the general opinion, has not succeeded better
than her other suitors; but Pepita, to fulfill the adage that "courtesy
and candor are consistent with each other," takes the greatest pains to
give him proofs of a frank, affectionate, and disinterested friendship.
She is unremitting in her attentions to him, and, when he tries to speak
to her of love, she brings him to a stop with a sermon delivered with
the most winning sweetness, recalling to his memory his past faults, and
endeavoring to undeceive him in regard to the world and its vain pomps.
I confess that I begin to have some curiosity to know this woman, so
much do I hear her spoken of; nor do I think my curiosity is without
foundation, or that there is anything in it either vain or sinful. I
myself feel the truth of what Pepita says; I myself desire that my
father, in his advanced years, should enter upon a better life, should
forget, and not seek to renew the agitations and passions of his youth,
and should attain to the enjoyment of a tranquil, happy, and honorable
old age. I differ from Pepita's way of thinking in one thing only; I
believe my father would succeed in this rather by marrying a good and
worthy woman who loved him, than by remaining single. For this very
reason I desire to become acquainted with Pepita, in order to know if
she be this woman; for I am to a certain extent troubled--and perhaps
there is in this feeling something of family pride, which, if it be
wrong, I desire to divest myself of--by the disdain, however honeyed and
gracious, of the young widow.
If my situation were other than it is, I should prefer my father to
remain unmarried. Then, being the only child, I should inherit all his
wealth, and, as one might say, nothing less than the position of squire
of the village. But you already know how firm is the resolution I have
taken. Humble and unworthy though I be, I feel myself called to the
priesthood, and the possessions of this world have but little power over
my mind. If there is anything in me of the ardor of youth, and the
vehemence of the passions proper to that age, it shall all be employed
in nourishing an active and fecund charity. Even the many books you have
given me to read, and my knowledge of the history of the ancient
civilizations of the peoples of Asia, contribute to unite within me
scientific curiosity with the desire of propagating the faith, and
invite and animate me to go forth as a missionary to the far East. As
soon as I leave this village, where you, my dear uncle, have sent me to
pass some time with my father, and am raised to the dignity of the
priesthood, and, ignorant and sinner as I am, feel myself invested, by
free and supernatural gift through the sovereign goodness of the Most
High, with the power to absolve from sin, and with the mission to teach
the peoples, as soon as I receive the perpetual and miraculous grace of
handling with impure hands the very God made man, it is my purpose to
leave Spain, and go forth to distant lands to preach the gospel.
I am not actuated in this by any species of vanity. I do not desire to
believe myself superior to other men. The power of my faith, the
constancy of which I feel myself capable, everything after the favor and
grace of God, I owe to the judicious education, to the holy teaching,
and to the good example I have received from you, my dear uncle.
There is something I hardly dare confess to myself, but which, against
my will, presents itself with frequency to my mind; and, since it
presents itself to my mind, it is my desire, it is my duty to confess it
to you: it would be wrong for me to hide from you even my most secret
and involuntary thoughts. You have taught me to analyze the feelings of
the soul; to search for their origin, if it be good or evil; to make, in
short, a scrupulous examination of conscience.
I have often reflected on two different methods of education: that of
those who endeavor to keep the mind in innocence, confounding innocence
with ignorance, and believing evil that is unknown to be avoided more
easily than evil that is known; and that of those, on the other hand,
who courageously, and as soon as the pupil has arrived at the age of
reason, show him, with due regard for modesty, evil in all its hideous
ugliness and repulsive nakedness, to the end that he may abhor and avoid
it. According to my way of thinking, it is necessary to know evil in
order the better to comprehend the infinite divine goodness, the ideal
and unattainable end of every virtuously born desire. I am grateful to
you that you have made me to know, with the honey and the oil of your
teaching, as the Scripture says, both good and evil, to the end that I
should aspire to the one and condemn the other, knowingly and with
discreet ardor. I rejoice that I am no longer in a state of mere
innocence, and that I shall go forward in the progress toward virtue,
and, in so far as is permitted to humanity, toward perfection, with a
knowledge of all the tribulations, all the asperities that there are in
the pilgrimage we are called upon to make through this valley of tears;
as I am not ignorant, on the other hand, of how smooth, how easy, how
pleasant, how flowery, the road is, in appearance, that leads to
perdition and eternal death.
Another thing for which I feel bound to be grateful to you is the
indulgence, the toleration, not condescending nor lax, but, on the
contrary, grave and severe, with which you have been able to inspire me
for the errors and the sins of my fellow-men.
I say all this to you because I wish to speak to you on a subject of so
delicate a nature that I hardly find words in which to express myself
concerning it. In short, I often ask myself whether the resolution I
have adopted had not its origin, in part at least, in the character of
my relations with my father. In the bottom of my heart have I been able
to pardon him his conduct toward my poor mother, the victim of his
errors?
I consider this matter carefully, and I can not find an atom of hatred
in my breast. On the contrary, gratitude fills it entirely. My father
has brought me up affectionately. He has tried to honor in me the memory
of my mother, and one would have said that in my bringing up, in the
care he took of me, in the indulgence with which he treated me, in his
devotion to me as a child, he sought to appease her angry shade--if the
shade, if the spirit of her who was on earth an angel of goodness and
gentleness, could be capable of anger. I repeat, then, that I am full of
gratitude toward my father; he has acknowledged me, and, besides, he
sent me at the age of ten years to you, to whom I owe all that I am.
If there is in my heart any germ of virtue, if there is in my mind any
element of knowledge, if there is in my will any honorable and good
purpose, to you it is I owe it.
My father's affection for me is extraordinary; the estimation in which
he holds me is far superior to my merits. Perhaps, vanity may have
something to do with this. In paternal love there is something selfish;
it is, as it were, a prolongation of selfishness. If I were possessed of
any merit, my father would regard it all as a creation of his own, as if
I were an emanation of his personality, as much in spirit as in body. Be
this as it will, however, I believe that my father loves me, and that
there is in his affection something self-sustaining, and superior to all
this pardonable selfishness of which I have spoken.
I experience a great consolation, a profound tranquillity of
conscience--and for this I return most fervent thanks to God--when I
take cognizance of the fact that the power of blood, the tie of nature,
that mysterious bond that unites us, leads me, without any
consideration of duty, to love my father and to reverence him. It would
be horrible not to love him thus--to be compelled to force myself to
love in order to obey a divine command. Nevertheless--and here comes
back my doubt--does my purpose of becoming a priest or a friar, of not
accepting, or of accepting only a very small part of the immense fortune
that will be mine by inheritance, and which I might enjoy even during my
father's lifetime, does this proceed solely from my contempt of the
things of this world, from a true vocation for a religious life, or does
it not also proceed from pride, from hidden rancor, from resentment,
from something in me that refuses to forgive what my mother herself,
with sublime generosity, forgave? This doubt assails and torments me at
times, but almost always I resolve it in my favor, and come to the
conclusion that I have no feeling of pride toward my father: I think I
would accept from him all he has, if I were to need it, and I rejoice to
be as grateful to him for little as for much.
Farewell, uncle; in future I will write to you often, and as much at
length as you recommend me, if not quite so much so as to-day, lest I
should appear prolix.
_March 28th._
I begin to be tired of my stay in this place, and every day the desire
grows stronger within me to return to you and to receive my ordination;
but my father wishes to accompany me, he wishes to be present at that
solemn ceremony, and desires that I should remain here with him at least
two months longer. He is so amiable, so affectionate with me, that it
would be impossible for me not to gratify him in all his wishes. I shall
remain here, therefore, for the time he desires. In order to give him
pleasure I do violence to my feelings, and make an effort to seem
interested in the amusements of the village, the country sports, and
even shooting, in all of which I am his companion. I try to appear gayer
and more animated than I am by nature. As, in the village, half in jest,
half by way of eulogy, I am called the saint, I endeavor, through
modesty, to avoid the appearance of sanctity, or to soften and humanize
its manifestations with the virtue of moderation, displaying a serene
and decent cheerfulness which was never yet opposed to holiness nor to
the saints. I confess, nevertheless, that the merry-making and the
sports of these people, with their coarse jokes and boisterous mirth,
weary me. I do not want to fall into the sin of scandal, nor to speak
ill of any one, though it be only to you and in confidence, but I often
think that it would be a more difficult enterprise, as well as a more
rational and meritorious one, to preach the gospel to these people, and
try to elevate their moral nature, than to go to India, Persia, or
China, leaving so many of my country-people behind, who are, if not
perverted, at least to some extent gone astray. Many, indeed, are of the
opinion that modern ideas, that materialism and infidelity, are to blame
for this; but if that be the case, if they it be that produce such evil
effects, then it must be in some strange, diabolical, and miraculous
manner, and not by natural means; since the fact is that here the people
read no books, either good or bad, so that I do not well see how they
can be perverted by any evil doctrines the books in fashion may contain.
Can these evil doctrines be in the air, like a miasma or an epidemic?
Perhaps--and I am sorry this thought, which I mention to you only,
should occur to me--perhaps the clergy themselves are in fault. Are
they, in Spain, equal to their mission? Do they go among the people,
teaching and preaching to them? Are they all capable of this? Have those
who consecrate themselves to a religious life and to the salvation of
souls a true vocation for their calling? Or is it only a means of
living, like any other, with this difference, that in our day only the
poorest, only those who are without expectations and without means,
devote themselves to it, for the very reason that this calling offers a
less brilliant prospect than any other? Be that as it may, the very
scarcity of virtuous and learned priests arouses all the more within me
the desire to be a priest. I would not willingly let self-love deceive
me. I recognize all my defects, but I feel within me a true vocation,
and many of those defects it may still be possible, with the divine
help, to correct.
The dinner at the house of Pepita Ximenez, which I mentioned to you,
took place three days ago. As she leads so retired a life, I had not met
her before; she seemed to me, in truth, as beautiful as she is said to
be; and I noticed that her amiability with my father was such as to give
him reason to hope, at least judging superficially, that she will yield
to his wishes in the end, and accept his hand.
As there is a possibility of her becoming my step-mother, I have
observed her with attention; she seems to me to be a remarkable woman,
whose moral qualities I am not able to determine with exactitude. There
is about her an air of calmness and serenity that may come either from
coldness of heart and spirit, with great self-control and power of
calculating effects, accompanied by little or no sensibility, or that
may, on the other hand, proceed from the tranquillity of her conscience
and the purity of her aspirations, united to the purpose of fulfilling
in this life the duties imposed upon her by society, while her hopes are
fixed meantime upon loftier things, as their proper goal. What is
certain is that, either because with this woman everything is the result
of calculation, without any effort to elevate her mind to a higher
sphere, or, it may be, because she blends in perfect harmony the prose
of daily life with the poetry of her illusions, there is nothing
discernible in her out of tone with her surroundings, although she
possesses a natural distinction of manner that elevates her above and
separates her from them all. She does not affect the dress of a
provincial, nor does she, on the other hand, follow blindly the fashions
of the city; she unites both these styles in her mode of dress in such a
manner as to appear like a lady, but still a lady country-born and
country-bred. She disguises to a great extent, as I think, the care she
takes of her person. There is nothing about her to betray the use of
cosmetics or the arts of the toilet. But the whiteness of her hands, the
color and polish of her nails, and the grace and neatness of her attire
denote a greater regard for such matters than might be looked for in one
who lives in a village, and who is said, besides, to despise the
vanities of this world, and to think only of heavenly things.
Her house is exquisitely clean, and everything in it reveals the most
perfect order. The furniture is neither artistic nor elegant, nor is it,
on the other hand, either pretentious or in bad taste. To give a poetic
air to her surroundings, she keeps in the saloons and galleries, as well
as in the garden, a multitude of plants and flowers. There is not,
indeed, among them any rare plant or exotic, but her plants and flowers,
of the commonest species here, are tended with extraordinary care.