constantly with pleasant conversation, and even with discussions on
matters foreign to the game itself, in all which Pepita displays such
clearness of understanding, such liveliness of imagination, and a grace
of expression so extraordinary, as to astonish me.
I find no sufficient motive to change my opinion with respect to what I
have already said in answer to your suspicions that Pepita perhaps feels
a certain liking for me. She manifests toward me the affection she would
naturally entertain for the son of her suitor, Don Pedro de Vargas, and
the timidity and shyness that would be inspired by a man in my position,
who, though not yet a priest, is soon to become one.
Nevertheless, as I always speak to you in my letters as if I were
kneeling before you in the confessional, I desire, as is my duty, to
communicate to you a passing impression I have received on two or three
occasions. This impression may be but a hallucination or a delusion, but
I have none the less received it.
I have already told you in my former letters that the eyes of Pepita,
green as those of Circe, are calm and tranquil in their gaze; she does
not seem to be conscious of their power, or to know that they serve for
any other purpose than to see with. When she looks at one, the soft
light of her glance is so clear, so frank, and so untroubled that,
instead of giving rise to any evil thoughts, it seems to give birth to
pure thoughts, and leaves innocent and chaste souls in untroubled
repose, while it destroys every incitement to evil in souls that are not
chaste. There is no trace of ardent passion, no fire to be discovered in
Pepita's eyes. Their light is like the mild ray of the moon.
Well, then, notwithstanding all this, I fancied I detected, on two or
three occasions, a sudden brightness, a gleam as of lightning, a swift,
devouring flame in her eyes as they rested on me. Can this be the result
of a ridiculous vanity, inspired by the arch-fiend himself?
I think so. I believe it is, and I wish to believe it.
The swiftness, the fugitive nature of the impression make me conjecture
that it had no external reality, that it was only an illusion.
The serenity of heaven, the coldness of indifference, tempered, indeed,
with sweetness and charity--this is what I always discern in Pepita's
eyes.
Nevertheless, this illusion, this vision of a strange and ardent glance,
torments me.
My father affirms that in affairs of the heart it is the woman, not the
man, who takes the first step; and that she takes it without thereby
incurring any responsibility, and with the power to disavow or retract
it whenever she desires to do so. According to my father, it is the
woman who first declares her passion through the medium of furtive
glances that, later, she disavows to her own conscience if necessary,
and of which he to whom they are directed divines, rather than reads,
the significance. In this manner, by a species of electric shock, by
means of a subtle and inexplicable intuition, he who is loved perceives
that he is loved; and when at last he makes up his mind to declare
himself, he can do so confidently, and in the full security that his
passion is returned.
Perhaps it is these theories of my father, to which I have listened
because I could not help it, that have heated my fancy and made me
imagine what has no existence in reality.
Yet, after all, I say to myself at times, Is the thought so absurd, so
incredible, that this illusion should have an existence in reality? And
if it had, if I were pleasing in Pepita's eyes otherwise than as a
friend, if the woman to whom my father is paying his addresses should
fall in love with me, would not my position then be terrible?
But let us cast away these fears, the creation, no doubt, of vanity. Let
us not make of Pepita a Phædra, or of me a Hippolytus.
What in reality begins to surprise me is my father's carelessness and
complete consciousness of security. Pardon my pride, ask Heaven to
pardon it; for at times this consciousness of security piques and
offends me. What! I say to myself, is there something so absurd in the
thought that it should not even occur to my father that, notwithstanding
my supposed sanctity, or perhaps because of my supposed sanctity, I
should, without wishing it, inspire Pepita with love?
There is an ingenious method of reasoning by which I explain to myself,
without wounding my vanity, my father's carelessness in this important
particular. My father, although he has no reason for doing so, begins to
regard himself already in the light of Pepita's husband, and to share in
that fatal blindness with which Asmodeus, or some other yet more
malicious demon, afflicts husbands. Profane and ecclesiastical history
is fall of instances of this blindness, which God permits, no doubt, for
providential purposes. The most remarkable example of it, perhaps, is
that of the Emperor Marcus Aurelius, who had for wife a woman so vile as
Faustina, and yet so wise a man and so great a philosopher remained in
ignorance to the end of his days of what was known to every one else in
the Roman Empire; so that in the meditations or memoirs of himself that
he composed he gives infinite thanks to the immortal gods for having
bestowed upon him so faithful and so good a wife; thus provoking the
smiles of his contemporaries and of future generations.
Every day since then we see examples of great men and men of exalted
rank who make those who enjoy the favor of their wives their private
secretaries, and bestow honors on them. Thus do I explain to myself my
father's indifference and his failure to suspect that, even against my
own will, it would be possible for him to find a rival in me.
Would it be a want of respect on my part, should I fall into the fault
of presumption or insolence, if I were to warn my father of the danger
which he himself does not see? But he gives me no opportunity to say
anything to him. Besides, what could I say to him? That once or twice I
fancy Pepita has looked at me in a way different from that in which she
usually does? May not this be an illusion of mine? No; I have not the
least proof that Pepita desires to play the coquette with me.
What, then, could I tell my father? Shall I say to him that it is I who
am in love with Pepita; that I covet the treasure he already regards as
his own? This is not the truth; and, above all, how could I tell this to
my father, even if, to my misfortune and through my fault, it were the
truth?
The best course I can adopt is to say nothing; to combat the temptation
in silence, if it should indeed assail me, and to endeavor, as soon as
possible, to leave this place and return to you.
_May 19th._
I return thanks to Heaven and to you for the letters and the counsels
you have lately sent me. To-day I need them more than ever.
The mystical and learned St. Theresa is right in dwelling upon the
suffering of timid souls that allow themselves to be disturbed by
temptation; but a thousand times worse than that suffering is the
awakening from error of those who, like me, have permitted themselves to
indulge in arrogance and self-confidence.
Our bodies are the temples wherein dwells the Holy Spirit; but when
fire is set to the walls of the temple, though they do not burn, yet
they are blackened.
The first evil thought is the head of the serpent; if we do not crush it
with firm and courageous foot, then will the venomous reptile climb up
and hide himself in our bosom.
The nectar of earthly joys, however innocent they be, is sweet indeed to
the taste; but afterward it is converted into gall, and into the venom
of the serpent.
It is true--I can no longer deny it to you--I ought not to have allowed
my eyes to rest with so much complacency on this dangerous woman.
I do not deem myself lost; but I feel my soul troubled.
Even as the thirsty hart desires and seeks the water-brooks, so does my
soul still seek God. To God does it turn that he may give it rest; it
longs to drink at the torrent of his delights the gushing forth of which
rejoices paradise, and whose clear waves make whiter than snow but deep
calleth unto deep, and my feet have stuck fast in the mire that is
hidden in their abysses.
Yet have I still breath and voice to cry out with the psalmist: "Arise,
my joy! if thou dost take my part, who shall prevail against me?"
I say unto my sinful soul, full of the chimerical imaginations and
sinful desires engendered by unlawful thoughts: "O miserable daughter
of Babylon! happy shall he be who shall give thee thy reward! Happy
shall he be that dasheth thy little ones against the rock!"
Works of penance, fasting, prayer, and penitence, are the weapons
wherewith I shall arm myself to combat, and, with the Divine help, to
vanquish.
It was not a dream; it was not madness; it was the truth: she lets her
eyes rest upon me at times with the ardent glance of which I have told
you. There is in her glance an unexplainable magnetic attraction. It
draws me on, it seduces me, and I can not withdraw my gaze from her. On
such occasions my eyes must burn, like hers, with a fatal flame, as did
those of Amnon when he turned them upon Tamar; as did those of the
prince of Shechem when they were fixed upon Dinah.
When our glances encounter each other thus, I forget even God. Her image
rises up within my soul, the conqueror of everything. Her beauty
outshines all other beauty; the joys of heaven seem to me less desirable
than her affection. An eternity of suffering would be little in exchange
for one moment of the infinite bliss with which one of those glances
that pass like lightning inundates my soul.
When I return home, when I am alone in my room, in the silence of the
night, I realize all the horror of my position, and I form good
resolutions, only to break them again.
I resolve to feign sickness, to make use of any pretext so as not to go
to Pepita's on the following night, and yet I go.
My father, confiding to the last degree, says to me when the hour
arrives, without any suspicion of what is passing in my soul:
"Go you to Pepita's; I will go later, when I have finished with the
overseer."
No excuse occurs to me; I can find no pretext for not going, and,
instead of answering, "I can not go," I take my hat and depart.
On entering the room I shake hands with Pepita, and, as our hands touch,
she casts a spell over me; my whole being is changed; a devouring fire
penetrates my heart, and I think only of her. Moved by an irresistible
impulse, I gaze at her with insane ardor, and at every instant I think I
discover in her new perfections. Now it is the dimples in her cheeks
when she smiles, now the roseate whiteness of her skin, now the straight
outlines of her nose, now the smallness of her ear, now the softness of
contour and the admirable modeling of her throat.
I enter her house against my will, as though summoned there by a
conjurer, and no sooner am I there than I fall under the spell of her
enchantment. I see clearly that I am in the power of an enchantress,
whose fascination is irresistible.
Not only is she pleasing to my sight, but her words sound in my ears
like the music of the spheres, revealing to my soul the harmony of the
universe; and I even fancy that a subtle fragrance emanates from her,
sweeter than the perfume of the mint that grows by the brook-side, or
the wood-like odor of the thyme that is found among the hills.
I know not how, in this state of exaltation, I am able to play _hombre,_
or to converse rationally, or even to speak, so completely am I absorbed
in her.
When our glances encounter each other, our souls rush forth in them, and
seem to join and interpenetrate each other. In that meeting a thousand
feelings are communicated that in no other way could be made known;
poems are recited that could be uttered in no human tongue, and songs
are sung that no human voice could sing, no according zither accompany.
Since the day I met Pepita in the _Pozo de la Solana_, I have not seen
her alone. Although no word has passed between us, yet we have told each
other everything.
When I withdraw myself from this fascination, when I am again alone at
night in my chamber, I set myself to examine coolly the situation in
which I am placed; I see the abyss that is about to ingulf me, yawning
before me, and I feel my feet slip from under me, and that I am sinking
into it.
You counsel me to reflect upon death--not on the death of this woman,
but on my own. You counsel me to reflect on the instability, on the
insecurity of our existence, and on what there is beyond it. But these
considerations, these reflections neither terrify nor daunt me. Why
should I, who desire to die, fear death? Love and death are brothers. A
sentiment of self-abnegation springs to life within me, and tells me
that my whole being should be consecrated to and annihilated in the
beloved object. I long to merge myself in one of her glances; to diffuse
and exhale my whole being in the ray of light shot forth from her eyes;
to die while gazing on her, even though I should be eternally lost.
What is still to some extent efficacious with me against this love is
not fear, but love itself. Superior to this deep-rooted love with which
I now have the evidence that Pepita inspires me, Divine love exalts
itself in my spirit in mighty uprising. Then everything is changed
within me, and I feel that I may yet obtain the victory. The object of
my higher love presents itself to my mental vision, as the sun that
kindles and illuminates all things, and fills all space with light; and
the object of my inferior love appears but as an atom of dust floating
in the sunbeam. All its beauty, all its splendor, all its attraction are
nothing but the reflection of this uncreated sun, the brilliant,
transitory, fleeting spark that is cast off from that infinite and
inexhaustible fire.
My soul, burning with love, would fain take to herself wings and rise to
that flame, in order that all that is impure within her might be
consumed therein.
My life, for some days past, is a constant struggle. I know not how it
is that the malady from which I suffer does not betray itself in my
countenance. I scarcely eat; I scarcely sleep. And if by chance sleep
closes my eyelids, I awake in terror as from a dream in which rebel
angels are arrayed against good angels, and in which I am one of the
combatants. In this conflict of light against darkness, I do battle for
the right, but I sometimes imagine that I have gone over to the enemy,
that I am a vile deserter; and I hear a voice from Patmos saying, "And
men preferred darkness rather than light"; and then I am filled with
terror and I look upon myself as lost. No resource is left me but
flight. If, before the end of the month, my father does not go with me,
or consent to my going alone, I shall steal away like a thief, without a
word to any one.
_May 23d._
I am a vile worm, not a man; I am the opprobrium and disgrace of
humanity. I am a hypocrite.
I have been encompassed by the pangs of death, and the waters of
iniquity have passed over me.
I am ashamed to write to you, and yet I write. I desire to confess
everything to you.
I can not turn away from evil. Far from abstaining from going to
Pepita's, I go there each night earlier than the last. It would seem as
if devils took me by the feet and carried me there against my will!
Happily, I never find Pepita alone; I do not desire to find her alone. I
almost always find there before me the excellent vicar, who attributes
our friendship to similarity of feeling in religious matters, and bases
it on piety, like the pure and innocent friendship he himself entertains
for her.
The progress of my malady is rapid. Like the stone that is loosened from
the mountain-top and gathers force as it falls, so is it with my spirit
now.
When Pepita and I shake hands, it is not now as before. Each one of us,
by an effort of the will, transmits to the other, through the handclasp,
every throb of the heart. It is as if, by some diabolical art, we had
effected a transfusion and a blending together of the most subtle
elements our blood. She must feel my life circulate through her veins,
as I feel hers in mine.
When I am near her, I love her; when I am away from her, I hate her.
When I am in her presence she inspires me with love; she draws me to
her; she subjugates me with gentleness; she lays upon me a very easy
yoke.
But the recollection of her undoes me. When I dream of her, I dream that
she is severing my head from my body, as Judith slew the captain of the
Assyrians; or that she is driving a nail into my temple, as Jael did to
Sisera. But when I am near her, she appears to me the Spouse of the Song
of Songs, and a voice within me calls to her, and I bless her, and I
regard her as a sealed fountain, as an inclosed garden, as the flower of
the valley, as the lily of the fields, my dove and my sister.
I desire to free myself from her, and I can not. I abhor, yet I almost
worship her. Her spirit enters into and takes possession of me as soon
as I behold her; it subjugates me, it abases me.
I leave her house each night, saying, "This is the last night I shall
return here"; and I return there on the following night!
When she speaks, and I am near, my soul hangs, as it were, upon her
words. When she smiles, I imagine that a ray of spiritual light enters
into my heart and rejoices it.
It has happened, when playing _hombre_, that our knees have touched by
chance, and then I have felt a thrill run through me impossible to
describe.
Get me away from this place. Write to my father and ask him to let me
return to you. If it be necessary, tell him everything. Help me! Be you
my refuge!
_May 30th._
God has given me strength to resist, and I have resisted.
It is now many days since I have been in the house of Pepita, many days
since I have seen her.
It is scarcely necessary that I should feign sickness, for I am in
reality sick. I have lost my color, and dark circles begin to show
themselves under my eyes; and my father asks me, full of affectionate
anxiety, what the cause of my suffering is, and manifests the deepest
concern in my regard.
The kingdom of heaven is said to yield to violence, and I am resolved to
conquer it. With violence I call at its gates that they may open to me.
With wormwood am I fed by the Lord, in order to prove me; and in vain do
I supplicate him to let this cup of bitterness pass away from me. But,
as I have passed and still pass many nights in vigil, delivered up to
prayer, a loving inspiration from the Supreme Consoler has come to
sweeten the bitterness of my cup.
I have beheld with the eyes of the soul the new country; and the new
song of the heavenly Jerusalem has resounded within the depths of my
heart.
If in the end I should conquer, glorious will be the victory; but I
shall owe it to the Queen of Angels, under whose protection I place
myself. She is my refuge and my defense; the tower and the house of
David, on whose walls hang innumerable shields and the armor of many
valiant champions; the cedar of Lebanon, that puts to flight the
serpent.
The woman who inspires me with an earthly love, on the contrary, I
endeavor to despise and abase in my thoughts, remembering the words of
the sage, and applying them to her.
"Thou art the snare of the hunter," I say to her; "thy heart is a net of
deceit, and thy hands are bands that imprison; he who fears God will
flee from thee, and the sinner shall be taken captive by thee."
In my meditations on love, I find a thousand reasons for loving God, and
against loving her.
I feel, in the depths of my heart, an indescribable enthusiasm that
convinces me that for the love of God I would sacrifice all
things--fame, honor, power, dominion. I feel myself capable of imitating
Christ, and if the tempter should carry me off to the mountain-top, and
should there offer me all the kingdoms of the earth if I consented to
bow the knee before him, yet would I not bend it. But were he to offer
me this woman if I should do so, I feel that I should waver, that I
should not reject his offer. Is this woman, then, worth more in my eyes
than all the kingdoms of the earth? More than fame, honor, power, and
dominion?
Is the virtue of love, I ask myself at times, always the same, even when
applied to diverse objects; or are there two species and qualities of
love? To love God seems to me to be the giving up of self and of selfish
interest. Loving him, I desire to love, and I can love all things
through him, and I am not troubled or jealous because of his love toward
all things. I am not jealous of the saints, or of the martyrs, or of the
blessed, or even of the seraphim. The greater I picture to myself to be
the love of God for his creatures, and the graces and gifts he bestows
upon them, the less am I troubled by jealousy; the more I love him, the
nearer to me do I feel him to be, and the more loving and gracious does
he seem toward me. My brotherhood, my more than brotherhood with all
creatures, stands forth then in a most pleasing light. It seems to me
that I am one with all things, and that all things are bound together in
the bonds of love, through God and in God.
Very different is it when my thoughts dwell upon Pepita, and on the love
with which she inspires me. This love is a love full of hatred, that
separates me from everything but myself. I desire her for myself,
altogether for myself, and myself altogether for her. Even devotion to
her, even sacrifices made for her sake, partake of the nature of
selfishness. To die for her would be to die of despair at not being able
to possess her in any other manner--from the fear of not enjoying her
love completely, except by dying and commingling with her in an eternal
embrace.
By these reflections I endeavor to render the love of Pepita hateful to
me. I invest my love in my imagination with something diabolical and
fatal; but, as if I possessed a double soul, a double understanding, a
double will, and a double imagination, in contradiction to this thought,
other feelings rise up within me in its train, and I then deny what I
have just affirmed, and insanely endeavor to reconcile the two loves.
Would it not be possible, I ask myself, to fly from Pepita, and yet
continue to love her, without ceasing therefore to consecrate myself
with fervor to the love of God? For, as the love of God does not
exclude love of country, love of humanity, love of learning, love of
beauty in nature and in art, neither should it exclude another love, if
it be spiritual and immaculate. I will make of her, I say to myself, a
symbol, an allegory, an image of all that is good, of all that is
beautiful. She shall be to me, as Beatrice was to Dante, the image and
the symbol of country, of knowledge, and of beauty.
This intention suggests to me a horrible fancy, a monstrous thought. In
order to make of Pepita this symbol, this vaporous and ethereal image,
this sign and epitome of all that I can love under God, in God, and
subordinate to God, I picture her to myself dead, as Beatrice was dead
when Dante made her the subject of his song.
If I picture her to myself among the living, then I am unable to convert
her into a pure idea, and if I convert her into a pure idea, I kill her
in my thoughts.
Then I weep; I am filled with horror at my crime, and I draw near to her
in spirit, and with the warmth of my heart I bring her back to life
again; and I behold her, not errant, diaphanous, floating in shadowy
outline among roseate clouds and celestial flowers, as the stern
Ghibelline beheld his beloved in the upper sphere of purgatory, but
coherent, solid, clearly defined in the pure and serene air like the
masterpieces of Greek art, like Galatea already animated by the love of
Pygmalion, and descending--full of fire, exhaling love, rich in youth
and beauty--from her pedestal of marble.
Then I exclaim in the depths of my perturbed heart: "My virtue faints!
My God, do not thou forsake me! Hasten to my help; show thy countenance,
and I shall be saved."
Thus do I recover strength to resist temptation. Thus again does the
hope spring to life within me, that I shall regain my former
tranquillity when I shall have left this place.
The devil longs with ardor to swallow up the pure waters of Jordan, by
which are symbolized the persons who are consecrated to God. Hell
conspires against them, and lets loose all her monsters, upon them. St.
Bonaventure says, "We should not wonder that these persons have sinned,
but rather that they have not sinned."
Notwithstanding, I shall be able to resist and not sin. The Lord will
protect me.
_June 6th._