“Stop, man, stop, for Heaven’s sake; don’t crush us!” cried Dona Perfecta sarcastically.  “Poor we!  Be merciful, man, and allow us unhappy creatures to live.  And would you, then, be one of those who would aid the army in the grand work of crushing us?”

“I am not a soldier.  I will do nothing but applaud when I see the germs of civil war; of insubordination, of discord, of disorder, of robbery, and of barbarism that exist here, to the shame of our times and of our country, forever extirpated.”

“All will be as God wills.”

“Orbajosa, my dear aunt, has little else than garlic and bandits; for those who in the name of some political or religious idea set out in search of adventures every four or five years are nothing but bandits.”

“Thanks, thanks, my dear nephew!” said Dona Perfecta, turning pale.  “So Orbajosa has nothing more than that?  Yet there must be something else here—­something that you do not possess, since you have come to look for it among us.”

Rey felt the cut.  His soul was on fire.  He found it very difficult to show his aunt the consideration to which her sex, her rank, and her relation to himself entitled her.  He was on the verge of a violent outbreak, and a force that he could not resist was impelling him against his interlocutor.

“I came to Orbajosa,” he said, “because you sent for me; you arranged with my father—­”

“Yes, yes; it is true,” she answered, interrupting him quickly and making an effort to recover her habitual serenity.  “I do not deny it.  I am the one who is really to blame.  I am to blame for your ill-humor, for the slights you put upon us, for every thing disagreeable that has been happening in my house since you entered it.”

“I am glad that you are conscious of it.”

“In exchange, you are a saint.  Must I also go down on my knees to your grace and ask your pardon?”

“Senora,” said Pepe Rey gravely, laying down his knife and fork, “I entreat you not to mock me in so pitiless a manner.  I cannot meet you on equal ground.  All I have said is that I came to Orbajosa at your invitation.”

“And it is true.  Your father and I arranged that you should marry Rosario.  You came in order to become acquainted with her.  I accepted you at once as a son.  You pretended to love Rosario—­”

“Pardon me,” objected Pepe; “I loved and I love Rosario; you pretended to accept me as a son; receiving me with deceitful cordiality, you employed from the very beginning all the arts of cunning to thwart me and to prevent the fulfilment of the proposals made to my father; you determined from the first day to drive me to desperation, to tire me out; and with smiles and affectionate words on your lips you have been killing me, roasting me at the slow fire; you have let loose upon me in the dark and from behind an ambush a swarm of lawsuits; you have deprived me of the official commission which I brought to Orbajosa; you have brought me into disrepute in the town; you have had me turned out of the cathedral; you have kept me constantly separated from the chosen of my heart; you have tortured your daughter with an inquisitorial imprisonment which will cause her death, unless God interposes to prevent it.”