CHAPTER XVI.

But while Perico, after the occurrences which we have related, was dragging out a miserable existence among a band of criminals, what became of the other individuals of this family? To what extremes had they been carried by resentment, grief, despair, and revenge?

Pedro, from the fatal day on which he lost his son, had shut himself in his own house with his sorrow. The parish priest and some of his friends went from time to time to keep him company--not to console him, that was impossible, but to talk with him about his trouble, like those who relieve vessels of the bitter water of the sea, not to right them but to keep them from sinking. They had tried to persuade him to renew his intercourse with the family of Perico, but without success.

"No, no," he would answer on such occasions. "I have forgiven him before God and men; but have to do with his people as though it had not been, I cannot."

"Pedro, Pedro, that is not forgiveness," said the priest. "It is the letter but not the spirit of the law."

"Father," replied the poor man, "God does not ask what is impossible."

"No, but what he requires is possible."

"Sir, you want me to be a saint, and I am not one; it is enough for me to be a good Christian, and forgive. Have I molested them? Have I sought justice? What more can I do?"

"Pedro, returning good for evil, wise men walk in peace."

"Mercy, mercy, father! why shave so close as to lay bare the brains? God help and favor them; but each in his own house, and God with us all."

Maria had hidden herself with her daughter in the retirement of her cottage, covering the despair and shame of the latter with the sacred mantle of maternal love, her only refuge from the unanimous disapproval and condemnation which she justly merited. The unfortunate victims, Anna and Elvira, remained alone, but sustained in their immense affliction by their religion and their conscience. Many months passed in this way. At length two Capuchins came to the village to hold a mission. These missions were instituted for the conversion of the wicked, the awakening of the luke-warm, the encouragement of the good, and the consolation of the sorrowful.

The missionaries preached at night, and the church was filled with people who came to hear the word of God, which teaches men to be pious and humble.

The good Maria succeeded in persuading her daughter to go to the missions, and Rita, hard, bitter, and selfish, in her shame and desperation, found in them repentance, with tears for the past, penance and humiliation for the present, and for the future the divine hand, which lifts the fallen one, who, bathed in tears, and prostrate in ashes, implores its help. One night the subject of the sermon was the forgiveness of injuries. Magnificent theme! Holy and sublime beyond all others! The earnest preacher knew how to improve it, and the believing people how to understand it.

At the conclusion the good missionary knelt before the crucifix, and with fervent zeal and ardent charity promised the Lord of mercy, in the name of that multitude kneeling at his feet, that on the succeeding night there should not be in the temple a single hard and unreconciled heart. A burst of exclamations and tears confirmed the promise of the devoted apostle.

The day which followed was one of peace and love, according to the spirit of the evangel. The most deeply-rooted enmities were ended; the most irreconcilable foes embraced each other in the streets; the angels in heaven had cause for rejoicing.

Pedro went to see Anna. Terrible to the unhappy man was the entering into that house. He approached Anna and embraced her in silence. The afflicted mother shook, and tried in vain to overcome her emotion. But when Pedro turned toward Elvira, as she stood wringing her thin hands, worn to a shadow and bathed in tears--when {794} he pressed to his paternal heart her whom he had looked upon and loved as a daughter, all his grief broke forth in the cry: "Daughter! daughter! you and I loved him!"

Rita, also, went to Anna's to beg for that which Pedro went to carry. When she found herself in the presence of the mother-in-law she had outraged, she fell upon her knees. "I," she exclaimed, beating her breast, "have been the cause of all! I have not come to ask a forgiveness I do not deserve, but to beg of you to reprimand without cursing me." When she turned to Elvira, it was not enough to remain on her knees, she bent her face to the floor, moaning amidst her sobs. "Since you are an angel, forgive!"

Maria supported her prostrate child, and implored Anna with her looks and tears. Anna and Elvira, without a word of reproach, raised and embraced her who had done so much to injure them; striving all they could from that day to reanimate her, for she was the most wretched of the three, because the guilty one.

All the people looked with charity upon the woman who had sincerely and publicly repented, for although the society called cultivated finds in religious demonstrations another cause for vituperation, adding to the condemnation of faults which it never forgets the reproach of hypocrisy upon those who turn to God, the people, more generous and more just, honor the open evidence of penitence and humiliation. Therefore, when they saw Rita abase herself and weep, their indignation was exchanged for compassion, and the _epithet_ "infamous!" for the pitiful words "poor child!"

This was because the common people, though they know not what philanthropy means, know well, because religion teaches them, what is Christian charity.