“Pardon me,” objected the piqued Doña Victorina, “this power of the confessional—cure the alferez’s woman with a confession!”
“A wound, madam, is not a form of illness which the conscience can affect,” replied Padre Salví severely. “Nevertheless, a clean confession will preserve her from receiving in the future such blows as she got this morning.”
“She deserves them!” went on Doña Victorina as if she had not heard what Padre Salví said. “That woman is so insolent! In the church she did nothing but stare at me. You can see that she’s a nobody. Sunday I 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 heard this tirade. “Believe me, Don Santiago, to complete your daughter’s recovery it’s necessary that she take communion tomorrow. I’ll bring the 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,” Doña Victorina instantly took advantage of a slight hesitation on Padre Salví’s part to add, “I don’t understand how there can be men capable of marrying such a fright as that woman is. 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 girl for the communion tomorrow. I’ll come over tonight to absolve her of her peccadillos.”
Seeing Aunt Isabel come from the sickroom, he said to her in Tagalog, “Prepare your niece for confession tonight. Tomorrow I’ll bring over the 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. “I know what I’m doing; I’ve helped take care of plenty of sick people before. Besides, she’ll decide herself whether or not she wishes to receive the holy communion and you’ll see that she says yes.”
Capitan Tiago immediately agreed to everything, while Aunt Isabel returned to the sick girl’s chamber. María 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 white tablet that she took from a small glass tube. “He says that when you feel 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 Archbishop to absolve him from the excommunication, so that—”
This conversation was suspended at the aunt’s approach. “The padre says for you to get ready for confession, daughter,” said the latter. “You girls must leave her so that she can make her examination of conscience.”
“But it hasn’t been a week since she confessed!” protested Sinang. “I’m not sick and I don’t sin as often as that.”
“Abá! Don’t you know what the curate says: the righteous sin seven times a day? Come, what book shall I bring you, the Ancora, the Ramillete, or the Camino Recto para ir al Cielo?”
María Clara did not answer.
“Well, you mustn’t tire yourself,” added the good aunt to console her. “I’ll read the examination myself and you’ll have only to recall your sins.”
“Write to him not to think of me any more,” murmured María Clara in Sinang’s ear as the latter said goodbye to her.
“What?”
But the aunt again approached, and Sinang had to go away without understanding what her friend had meant. The good old aunt drew a chair up to the light, put her spectacles on the end of her nose, and opened a booklet. “Pay close attention, daughter. I’m going to begin with the Ten Commandments. I’ll go slow so that you can meditate. If you don’t hear well tell me so that I can repeat. You know that in looking after your welfare I’m never weary.”
She began to read in a monotonous and snuffling voice the considerations of cases of sinfulness. At the end of each paragraph she made a long pause in order to give the girl time to recall her sins and to repent of them.
María Clara stared vaguely into space. After finishing the first commandment, “to love God above all things,” Aunt Isabel looked at her over her spectacles and was satisfied with her sad and thoughtful mien. She coughed piously and after a long pause began to read the second commandment. The good old woman read with unction and when she had finished the commentaries looked again at her niece, who turned her head slowly to the other side.
“Bah!” said Aunt Isabel to herself. “With taking His holy name in vain the poor child has nothing to do. Let’s pass on to the third.”122
The third commandment was analyzed and commented upon. After citing all the cases in which one can break it she again looked toward the bed. But now she lifted up her glasses and rubbed her eyes, for she had seen her niece raise a handkerchief to her face as if to wipe away tears.
“Hum, ahem! The poor child once went to sleep during the sermon.” Then replacing her glasses on the end of her nose, she said, “Now let’s see if, just as you’ve failed to keep holy the Sabbath, you’ve failed to
