I could not go on. Exasperated and flushed with anger, with all the energy of his nature and the spirit of his calling, the friar stopped my mouth by laying his broad hand on it.
“By my faith! by all the saints! I feel like sending you I know very well where, and I would send you there if I did not see that you are in an abnormal state of mind. Serafín drank the Pajarete, but you have the fumes of it in your head. I did not believe it before, but now,--I did not imagine that too much drink was what ailed you; but if you go off in such wild sayings, the greatest favor I can do you is to suppose that you are tipsy.”
“Take care, Father, be careful what you say! Nobody has a right to hurt----”
The friar, quickly passing from anger to cordiality, clapped me on the shoulder, saying:
“Don’t get offended. Good gracious! Listen to me quietly if you can. Your potations have inclined you to take a high and sublime stand, which proves that you have a fund of good feeling stored away in your heart, that springs to the surface when you are least in control of yourself; precisely when you speak with perfect freedom, _ex abundantia cordis_. This is what I have observed, and I tell you so sincerely, with the sincerity becoming a member of a religious order, who neither disguises his thoughts nor concerns himself over trifles. I will even grant you more. Possibly, in the midst of your--ahem--excitement, you may clearly perceive the future, and be a prophet in maintaining that this marriage has been, humanly speaking, a blunder. But you make no account of the aid of grace and of Providence, which never fails the good, the simple-hearted, or those who do their duty, and trust in the word of Christ. Peace in the soul is a real treasure, among the many false ones the world offers. Don’t pity your aunt, or me, or any one who walks in the straight path and knows how to defy man’s physical nature.”
The friar’s arguments pierced my brain like a sword. Rather it was not his arguments, but the tone of conviction and veracity with which he uttered them, aided by my state of mind, and the silly admiration of the “high and sublime,” as the Father put it, induced by my tipsiness. At any rate, my pessimistic opinions sprang up afresh, and so did my desire to make an end of my wretched existence, or at least of its hurtful illusions. Repressing a longing to throw myself into the friar’s arms, I exclaimed: