Part 48 (1/2)
Ibarra tried to leave, but the maiden stopped him.
”Crisostomo!” she said. ”G.o.d has sent you to save me from desperation.... Hear me and judge me!”
Ibarra wished to withdraw gently from her.
”I have not come,” said he, ”to call you to account.... I have come to give you peace.”
”I do not want the peace which you give me. I will give myself peace. You despise me, and your contempt will make my life bitter till death.”
Ibarra saw the poor girl's desperation, and asked her what she desired.
”That you may believe that I have always loved you.”
Crisostomo smiled bitterly.
”Ah! You doubt me, you doubt the friend of your infancy, who has never hidden a single thought from you,” exclaimed she in grief. ”I understand you. When you know my history, the history which they revealed to me during my illness, you will pity me and you will no longer answer my grief with that bitter smile. Why did you not let me die in the hands of my ignorant doctor? You and I would have been happier then.”
Maria Clara rested a moment and then continued:
”You have doubted me; you have wished my mother to pardon me. During one of those nights of suffering, a man revealed to me the name of my true father, and forbade me to love you ... unless my true father should pardon you for the offense you committed against him.”
Ibarra recoiled and looked in terror at the maiden.
”Yes,” she continued. ”This man told me that he could not permit our marriage, since his conscience would not allow it, and he would find himself compelled to publish the truth at the risk of causing a great scandal, because my father is ...”
And she whispered a name in the young man's ear in a scarcely audible voice.
”What was I to do? Ought I to sacrifice to my love the memory of my mother, the honor of the man who innocently supposes himself my father, and the good name of my real father? Could I do that without you despising me for it?”
”But the proof? Have you proof? You need proof!” exclaimed Crisostomo, deeply agitated.
The maiden drew two letters from her bosom.
”Two of my mother's letters: two letters written in remorse before I was born. Take them, read them and you will see how she cursed me and desired my death, which my father in vain tried to cause by drugs. These letters were forgotten in the house where he lived; a man found them and kept them. They would only give them to me in exchange for your letter ... to make certain, as they said, that I would not marry you without the consent of my father. From the time that I began to carry them in my bosom instead of your letter, my heart was chilled. I sacrificed you, I sacrificed my love.... What would not a person do for a dead mother and two living fathers? Did I suspect the use to which they were going to put your letter?”
Ibarra was prostrated. Maria Clara went on:
”What was there left for me? Could I tell you who was my father? Could I ask you to seek the pardon of him who had so much desired my death, and who made your father suffer? There was nothing left for me but to keep the secret to myself, and to die suffering.... Now, my friend, you know the sad history of your poor Maria. Will you still have that contemptuous smile for her?”
”Maria, you are a saint.”
”I am happy now that you believe me.”
”However,” added the young man, changing his tone. ”I have heard that you are about to marry.”
”Yes,” sobbed the maiden. ”My father asked this sacrifice of me. He has fed me and loved me, and it was not his duty. I pay him this debt of grat.i.tude which I owe him by a.s.suring him peace through this new relative, but ...”