Its dogma is absurd and puerile, its history a tissue of crimes and violence.

Why should I lie like others, feigning a faith I do not feel?
To-day I have been to the palace to tell them they may dispose of my seven duros monthly and my chaplaincy of nuns.

I am going away.

I wish not only to fly the Church, I wish to get out of her atmosphere; and a renegade priest could not live in Toledo.

You see this masquerade?
I wear it to-day for the last time; to-morrow I shall taste the first joy of my life, tearing this shroud into shreds, such small shreds that no one will be able to use them.
I shall be a man.