CHAPTER XLIV
An Examination of Conscience
Long days and weary nights passed at the sick girl's bed. After havingconfessed herself, Maria Clara had suffered a relapse, and in herdelirium she uttered only the name of the mother whom she had neverknown. But her girl friends, her father, and her aunt kept watch ather side. Offerings and alms were sent to all the miraculous images,Capitan Tiago vowed a gold cane to the Virgin of Antipolo, and atlength the fever began to subside slowly and regularly.
Doctor De Espadana was astonished at the virtues of the syrup ofmarshmallow and the infusion of lichen, prescriptions that he had notvaried. Dona Victorina was so pleased with her husband that one daywhen he stepped on the train of her gown she did not apply her penalcode to the extent of taking his set of false teeth away from him,but contented herself with merely exclaiming, "If you weren't lameyou'd even step on my corset!"--an article of apparel she did not wear.
One afternoon while Sinang and Victoria were visiting their friend,the curate, Capitan Tiago, and Dona Victorina's family were conversingover their lunch in the dining-room.
"Well, I feel very sorry about it," said the doctor; "Padre Damasoalso will regret it very much."
"Where do you say they're transferring him to?" Linares asked thecurate.
"To the province of Tayabas," replied the curate negligently.
"One who will be greatly affected by it is Maria Clara, when shelearns of it," said Capitan Tiago. "She loves him like a father."
Fray Salvi looked at him askance.
"I believe, Padre," continued Capitan Tiago, "that all her illnessis the result of the trouble on the last day of the fiesta."
"I'm of the same opinion, and think that you've done well not to letSenor Ibarra see her. She would have got worse.
"If it wasn't for us," put in Dona Victorina, "Clarita would alreadybe in heaven singing praises to God."
"Amen!" Capitan Tiago thought it his duty to exclaim. "It's luckyfor you that my husband didn't have any patient of greater quality,for then you'd have had to call in another, and all those here areignoramuses. My husband--"
"Just as I was saying," the curate in turn interrupted, "I think thatthe confession that Maria Clara made brought on the favorable crisiswhich has saved her life. A clean conscience is worth more than a lotof medicine. Don't think that I deny the power of science, above all,that of surgery, but a clean conscience! Read the pious books andyou'll see how many cures are effected merely by a clean confession."
"Pardon me," objected the piqued Dona Victorina, "this power of theconfessional--cure the alferez's woman with a confession!"
"A wound, madam, is not a form of illness which the consciencecan affect," replied Padre Salvi severely. "Nevertheless, a cleanconfession will preserve her from receiving in the future such blowsas she got this morning."
"She deserves them!" went on Dona Victorina as if she had not heardwhat Padre Salvi said. "That woman is so insolent! In the church shedid nothing but stare at me. You can see that she's a nobody. SundayI was going to ask her if she saw anything funny about my face,but who would lower oneself to speak to people that are not of rank?"
The curate, on his part, continued just as though he had not heardthis tirade. "Believe me, Don Santiago, to complete your daughter'srecovery it's necessary that she take communion tomorrow. I'll bringthe viaticum over here. I don't think she has anything to confess,but yet, if she wants to confess herself tonight--"
"I don't know," Dona Victorina instantly took advantage of a slighthesitation on Padre Salvi's part to add, "I don't understand howthere can be men capable of marrying such a fright as that womanis. It's easily seen where she comes from. She's just dying of envy,you can see it! How much does an alferez get?"
"Accordingly, Don Santiago, tell your cousin to prepare the sick girlfor the communion tomorrow. I'll come over tonight to absolve her ofher peccadillos."
Seeing Aunt Isabel come from the sick-room, he said to her in Tagalog,"Prepare your niece for confession tonight. Tomorrow I'll bring overthe viaticum. With that she'll improve faster."
"But, Padre," Linares gathered up enough courage to ask faintly,"you don't think that she's in any danger of dying?"
"Don't you worry," answered the padre without looking at him. "Iknow what I'm doing; I've helped take care of plenty of sick peoplebefore. Besides, she'll decide herself whether or not she wishes toreceive the holy communion and you'll see that she says yes."
Capitan Tiago immediately agreed to everything, while Aunt Isabelreturned to the sick girl's chamber. Maria Clara was still in bed,pale, very pale, and at her side were her two friends.
"Take one more grain," Sinang whispered, as she offered her a whitetablet that she took from a small glass tube. "He says that when youfeel a rumbling or buzzing in your ears you are to stop the medicine."
"Hasn't he written to you again?" asked the sick girl in a low voice.
"No, he must be very busy."
"Hasn't he sent any message?"
"He says nothing more than that he's going to try to get the Archbishopto absolve him from the excommunication, so that--"
This conversation was suspended at the aunt's approach. "Thepadre says for you to get ready for confession, daughter," said thelatter. "You girls must leave her so that she can make her examinationof conscience."
"But it hasn't been a week since she confessed!" protested Sinang. "I'mnot sick and I don't sin as often as that."
"Aba! Don't you know what the curate says: the righteous sin seventimes a day? Come, what book shall I bring you, the _Ancora_, the_Ramillete_, or the _Camino Recto para ir al Cielo?_"
Maria Clara did not answer.
"Well, you mustn't tire yourself," added the good aunt to consoleher. "I'll read the examination myself and you'll have only to recallyour sins."
"Write to him not to think of me any more," murmured Maria Clara inSinang's ear as the latter said good-by to her.
"What?"
But the aunt again approached, and Sinang had to go away withoutunderstanding what her friend had meant. The good old aunt drew achair up to the light, put her spectacles on the end of her nose, andopened a booklet. "Pay close attention, daughter. I'm going to beginwith the Ten Commandments. I'll go slow so that you can meditate. Ifyou don't hear well tell me so that I can repeat. You know that inlooking after your welfare I'm never weary."
She began to read in a monotonous and snuffling voice theconsiderations of cases of sinfulness. At the end of each paragraphshe made a long pause in order to give the girl time to recall hersins and to repent of them.
Maria Clara stared vaguely into space. After finishing the firstcommandment, _to love God above all things_, Aunt Isabel looked ather over her spectacles and was satisfied with her sad and thoughtfulmien. She coughed piously and after a long pause began to read thesecond commandment. The good old woman read with unction and when shehad finished the commentaries looked again at her niece, who turnedher head slowly to the other side.
"Bah!" said Aunt Isabel to herself. "With taking His holy name in vainthe poor child has nothing to do. Let's pass on to the third." [122]
The third commandment was analyzed and commented upon. After citingall the cases in which one can break it she again looked toward thebed. But now she lifted up her glasses and rubbed her eyes, for shehad seen her niece raise a handkerchief to her face as if to wipeaway tears.
"Hum, ahem! The poor child once went to sleep during the sermon." Thenreplacing her glasses on the end of her nose, she said, "Now let'ssee if, just as you've failed to keep holy the Sabbath, you've failedto honor your father and mother."
So she read the fourth commandment in an even slower and more snufflingvoice, thinking thus to give solemnity to the act, just as she hadseen many friars do. Aunt Isabel had never heard a Quaker preach orshe would also have trembled.
The sick girl, in the meantime, raised the handkerchief to her eyesseveral times and her breathing became more noticeable.
"Wh
at a good soul!" thought the old woman. "She who is so obedientand submissive to every one! I've committed more sins and yet I'venever been able really to cry."
She then began the fifth commandment with greater pauses and evenmore pronounced snuffling, if that were possible, and with such greatenthusiasm that she did not hear the stifled sobs of her niece. Onlyin a pause which she made after the comments on homicide, by violencedid she notice the groans of the sinner. Then her tone passed into thesublime as she read the rest of the commandment in accents that shetried to reader threatening, seeing that her niece was still weeping.
"Weep, daughter, weep!" she said, approaching the bed. "The more youweep the sooner God will pardon you. Hold the sorrow of repentance asbetter than that of mere penitence. Weep, daughter, weep! You don'tknow how much I enjoy seeing you weep. Beat yourself on the breastalso, but not hard, for you're still sick."
But, as if her sorrow needed mystery and solitude to make it increase,Maria Clara, on seeing herself observed, little by little stoppedsighing and dried her eyes without saying anything or answering heraunt, who continued the reading. Since the wails of her audience hadceased, however, she lost her enthusiasm, and the last commandmentsmade her so sleepy that she began to yawn, with great detriment toher snuffling, which was thus interrupted.
"If I hadn't seen it with my own eyes, I wouldn't have believed it,"thought the good old lady afterwards. "This girl sins like a soldieragainst the first five and from the sixth to the tenth not a venialsin, just the opposite to us! How the world does move now!"
So she lighted a large candle to the Virgin of Antipolo and two othersmaller ones to Our Lady of the Rosary and Our Lady of the Pillar,[123] taking care to put away in a corner a marble crucifix to makeit understand that the candles were not lighted for it. Nor did theVirgin of Delaroche have any share; she was an unknown foreigner,and Aunt Isabel had never heard of any miracle of hers.
We do not know what occurred during the confession that night and werespect such secrets. But the confession was a long one and the aunt,who stood watch over her niece at a distance, could note that thecurate, instead of turning his ear to hear the words of the sick girl,rather had his face turned toward hers, and seemed only to be tryingto read, or divine, her thoughts by gazing into her beautiful eyes.
Pale and with contracted lips Padre Salvi left the chamber. Lookingat his forehead, which was gloomy and covered with perspiration,one would have said that it was he who had confessed and had notobtained absolution.
"_Jesus, Maria, y Jose!_" exclaimed Aunt Isabel, crossing herself todispel an evil thought, "who understands the girls nowadays?"