XXXVII.

SCRUTINY OF CONSCIENCE.

Long days followed by weary nights were passed by the pillow of the sick girl. After a confession to Father Salvi, Maria Clara had had a relapse, and in her delirium she pronounced no name but that of her mother, whom she had never known. Her friends, her father, her aunt, watched her, and heaped with gifts and with silver for masses the altars of miraculous images. At last, slowly and regularly, the fever began to abate.

The Doctor de Espadana was stupefied at the virtues of the syrup of marshmallow and the decoction of lichen, prescriptions he had never varied. Dona Victorina was so satisfied with her husband that one day when he stepped on her train, in a rare state of clemency she did not apply to him the usual penal code by pulling out his teeth.

One afternoon, Sinang and Victorina were with Maria; the curate, Captain Tiago, and the Espadanas were talking in the dining-room.

"I'm distressed to hear it," the doctor was saying; "and Father Damaso must be greatly disturbed."

"Where did you say he is to be sent?" asked Linares.

"Into the province of Tabayas," replied the curate carelessly.

"Maria Clara will be very sorry too," said Captain Tiago; "she loves him like a father."

Father Salvi looked at him from the corner of his eye.

"Father," continued Captain Tiago, "I believe her sickness came from nothing but that trouble the day of the fete."

"I am of the same opinion, so you have done well in not permitting Senor Ibarra to talk with her; that would only have aggravated her condition."

"And it is thanks to us alone," interrupted Dona Victorina, "that Clarita is not already in heaven singing praises with the angels."

"Amen!" Captain Tiago felt moved to say.

"I think I know whereof I speak," said the curate, "when I say that the confession of Maria Clara brought about the favorable crisis that saved her life. I do not deny the power of science, but a pure conscience----"

"Pardon," objected Dona Victorina, piqued; "then cure the wife of the alferez with a confession!"

"A hurt, senora, is not a malady, to be influenced by the conscience," replied Father Salvi severely; "but a good confession would preserve her in future from such blows as she got this morning."

"She deserved them!" said Dona Victorina. "She is an insolent woman. In church she did nothing but look at me. I had a mind to ask her what there was curious about my face; but who would soil her lips speaking to these people of no standing?"

The curate, as if he had not heard this tirade, continued: "To finish the cure of your daughter, she should receive the communion to-morrow, Don Santiago. I think she does not need to confess, and yet, if she will once more, this evening----"

"I don't know," said Dona Victorina, profiting by the pause to continue her reflections, "I don't understand how men can marry such frights. One easily sees where that woman came from. She is dying of envy, that shows in her eyes. What does an alferez get?"

"So prepare Maria for confession," the curate continued, turning to Aunt Isabel.

The good aunt left the group and went to her niece's room. Maria Clara was still in bed, and pale, very pale; beside her were her two friends.

Sinang was giving her her medicine.

"He has not written to you again?" asked Maria, softly.

"No."

"He gave you no message for me?"

"No; he only said he was going to make every effort to have the archbishop raise the ban of excommunication----"

The arrival of Aunt Isabel interrupted the conversation.

"The father says you are to prepare yourself for confession, my child," said she. "Sinang, leave her to examine her conscience. Shall I bring you the 'Anchor,' the 'Bouquet,' or the 'Straight Road to Heaven,' Maria?"

Maria Clara did not reply.

"Well, we mustn't fatigue you," said the good aunt consolingly; "I will read you the examination myself, and you will only have to remember your sins."

"Write him to think of me no more," murmured the sick girl in Sinang's ear.

"What!"

But Aunt Isabel came back with her book, and Sinang had to go.

The good aunt drew her chair up to the light, settled her glasses on the tip of her nose, and opened a little book.

"Give good attention, my child: I will begin with the commandments of God; I shall go slowly, so that you may meditate: if you don't hear well, you must tell me, and I will repeat; you know I'm never weary of working for your good."

In a voice monotonous and nasal, she began to read. Maria Clara gazed vaguely into space. The first commandment finished, Aunt Isabel observed her listener over her glasses, and appeared satisfied with her sad and meditative air. She coughed piously, and after a long pause began the second. The good old woman read with unction. The terms of the second commandment finished, she again looked at her niece, who slowly turned away her head.

"Bah!" said Aunt Isabel within herself, "as to taking His holy name in vain, the poor thing has nothing to question: pass on to the third."

And the third commandment sifted and commentated, all the causes of sin against it droned out, she again looked toward the bed. This time she lifted her glasses and rubbed her eyes; she had seen her niece raise her handkerchief, as if to wipe away tears.

"Hm!" said she; "hm! the poor child must have fallen asleep during the sermon." And putting back her glasses on the tip of her nose, she reflected:

"We shall see if besides not keeping the holy feast days, she has not honored her father and her mother." And slowly, in a voice more nasal than ever, she read the fourth commandment.

"What a pure soul!" thought the old lady; "she who is so obedient, so submissive! I've sinned much more deeply than that, and I've never been able to really cry!" And she began the fifth commandment with such enthusiasm that she did not hear the stifled sobs of her niece. It was only when she stopped after the commentaries on wilful homicide, that she perceived the groanings of the sinner. Then in a voice that passed description, and a manner she strove to make menacing, she finished the commentary, and seeing that Maria had not ceased to weep:

"Cry, my child, cry!" she said, going to her bedside; "the more you cry the more quickly will God pardon you. Cry, my child, cry; and beat your breast, but not too hard, for you are ill yet, you know."

But as if grief had need of mystery and solitude, Maria Clara, finding herself surprised, stopped sobbing little by little and dried her eyes. Aunt Isabel returned to her reading, but the plaint of her audience having ceased, she lost her enthusiasm; the second table of the law made her sleepy, and a yawn broke the nasal monotony.

"No one would have believed it without seeing it," thought the good woman; "the child sins like a soldier against the first five commandments, and from the sixth to the tenth not so much as a peccadillo. That is contrary to the custom of the rest of us. One sees queer things in these days!" And she lighted a great candle for the Virgin of Antipolo, and two smaller ones for Our Lady of the Rosary and Our Lady of the Pillar. The Virgin of Delaroche was excluded from this illumination: she was to Aunt Isabel an unknown foreigner.

We may not know what passed during the confession in the evening. It was long, and Aunt Isabel, who at a distance was watching over her niece, could see that instead of offering his ear to the sick girl, the curate had his face turned toward her. He went out, pale, with compressed lips. At the sight of his brow, darkened and moist with sweat, one would have said it was he who had confessed, and absolution had been denied him.

"Maria! Joseph!" said the good aunt, crossing herself, "who can comprehend the girls of to-day!"