And now you have come back so lean and suffering! You must have lived very fast; who knows what you have done in the world--sly boots! And your poor mother, who thought you would be a saint! God have mercy on us! Don't deny it; you have done no good and I hate lies.

You did right to enjoy yourself and to take advantage of every opportunity, but the misfortune is that you should have returned as you are, for it is pitiful to see you, but I have known a great many like you.

I don't know what evil spirit possesses people belonging to the church, but once they throw themselves into life, they don't know where to stop, and they burn the candle at both ends till there is next to nothing left; many of them, like you, have passed through the seminary." One morning Gabriel asked a question of his aunt that he had been long thinking about, but that he had never before dared to put into words.
He wanted to know all about his niece, Sagrario, and what had happened in his brother's house.
"You who are so kind, aunt, you will tell me; everyone seems afraid to speak about it; even my nephew the Tato, who is such a chatterer and skins everyone in the Claverias, is silent when I ask him.

What happened, aunt ?" The old woman's face grew very sad.
"A great misfortune, my son, such as was never known before in the upper cloister.

The madness of the world came into the Cathedral, and made a nest in the most honoured, most ancient, and most respectable house in the Claverias.