There is one subject upon which there can be no question--nothing to
admit of discussion. It is, that jealousy is the most painful thought
that can torture the soul of man.
In painfulness it has its degrees--greater or less, according to its
kind: for of this dread passion, conceit, or whatever you may call it,
there is more than one _species_.
There is the jealousy that springs after possession; and that which
arises from anticipation. Mine, of course, belonged to the latter.
I shall not stay to inquire which is the more disagreeable of the two--
as a general rule. I can only say, that, standing there under the
Peruvian pepper-trees, I felt as if the shades of death and the furies
of hell were above and around me.
I was angry at the man who had made me feel so;--but mad--absolutely
mad--with the woman!
What could she have meant in leading me such a measure? What profit did
she expect by practising upon me such a damnable delusion?
"_En la Alameda--a seis Horas_!"
I was there, true to the time,--and she, too. Six o'clock could be
heard striking from a score of church towers--every stroke as if the
hammer were driving a nail into my heart!
For some seconds I listened to the tolling--tolling--tolling. Were they
funeral bells?
Oh! what a woman--in beauty an angel--in behaviour a devil!
I had no longer a doubt that such was a true description of Mercedes
Villa-Senor.
To excuse my thus quickly coming to conclusions, you should know
something of Mexican society--its highest and best.
But it is not for me to expose it. My _souvenirs_ are too sweet to
permit of my turning traitor.
That was one of the most bitter--although it was also one of the most
transient.
Perhaps I should not say transient; since, after a very short interval
of relief, it came back bitter as before--with a bitterness long, long,
to continue.
The illusion was due to a process of reasoning that passed through my
mind as I stood looking after the _carretela_, after the incident
described.