“But the confession of my faults will not relieve me from the responsibility of the serious occurrences which have taken place and which are taking place, nor will this responsibility, no matter how much I may argue, fall altogether on your sister.  Dona Perfecta’s responsibility is certainly very great.  What will be the extent of mine!  Ah, dear father! believe nothing of what you hear about me; believe only what I shall tell you.  If they tell you that I have committed a deliberate piece of villany, answer that it is a lie.  It is difficult, very difficult, for me to judge myself, in the state of disquietude in which I am, but I dare assure you that I have not deliberately given cause for scandal.  You know well to what extremes passion can lead when circumstances favor its fierce, its all-invading growth.

“What is most bitter to me is the thought of having employed artifice, deceit, and base concealments—­I who was truth itself.  I am humiliated in my own estimation.  But is this the greatest perversity into which the soul can fall?  Am I beginning now, or have I ended?  I cannot tell.  If Rosario with her angelic hand does not take me out of this hell of my conscience, I desire that you should come to take me out of it.  My cousin is an angel, and suffering, as she has done, for my sake, she has taught me a great many things that I did not know before.

“Do not be surprised at the incoherence of what I write.  Diverse emotions inflame me; thoughts at times assail me truly worthy of my immortal soul; but at times also I fall into a lamentable state of dejection, and I am reminded of the weak and degenerate characters whose baseness you have painted to me in such strong colors, in order that I might abhor them.  In the state in which I am to-day I am ready for good or for evil.  God have pity upon me!  I already know what prayer is—­a solemn and reflexive supplication, so personal that it is not compatible with formulas learned by heart; an expansion of the soul which dares to reach out toward its source; the opposite of remorse, in which the soul, at war with itself, seeks in vain to defend itself by sophisms and concealments.  You have taught me many good things, but now I am practising; as we engineers say, I am studying on the ground; and in this way my knowledge will become broadened and confirmed.  I begin to imagine now that I am not so wicked as I myself believe.  Am I right?

“I end this letter in haste.  I must send it with some soldiers who are going in the direction of the station at Villahorrenda, for the post-office of this place is not to be trusted.”

“APRIL 14.