But there has never been the slightest doubt in my mind as to the meaning of his words. And that day for the first time that man and that woman gave me two different impressions.
Slowly she bored deeply through our hearts. She aroused things in us that were new, she woke new sentiments in us. Like a sweet breeze she blew upon the fire of our imagination and the feelings we entertained toward her were of the strangest and most confused nature. She aroused jealousy in us, she aroused too many things.
Did she delight in playing with children? Did it afford her pleasure to awaken our youthful hearts? Was it wickedness or was it just a weakness? Did what she guessed in us flatter her? The passion of a child must be quite flattering. I know that it must be the sweetest thing.
But was it really so? Perhaps we only imagined it. I have already explained myself. We were so overwrought, we slept so little, we worked so hard, we feared so much, we felt so persecuted. Our minds did not work properly. I think in that school we were all lunatics, we were neurotics. In short, we were the students, a bunch of emaciated nervous wrecks.
In describing Sister Carmela’s character I prefer not to quote the older people who knew of her. She may have harmed others, but she was good to me and to my friends. Besides, I have always felt that she placed a tacit confidence in us. Sometimes walking with us, she spoke of things that she asked us never to repeat. And yet she always liked to make every individual believe that he was the only one in her thoughts. She was not always sincere and I don’t know. I don’t know. But anyway I can only speak of what I remember happening.
And such was her character to the best of my knowledge:
Sister Carmela was an exceptional nun.
She was enormously attractive.
She was always friendly and gay.
She always wanted to arouse everyone.
She was entirely too human.
And one day she went away.
Although many people said that they expected it, I think it was more or less a surprise to all. To me it was more than a surprise, it was a revelation, which opened my eyes further and left an empty feeling in my soul.
I remember that there was much talk and confusion about it. I remember seeing the boys in circles in the patio of the school and the priests doing their best to break these circles. I remember how the younger students questioned the older ones upon the matter and were left in greater darkness after their complicated explanations. And then I heard my mother discussing it also among some friends who came to the house. She was saying something about a cloud of disgrace hanging over the Bejarano family. I remember hearing the word incest for the first time and hearing it often.
I heard someone say that it was bad enough for a nun to elope, but then with her own brother. And the whole village was aroused and there were contrary opinions about the whole thing. Some say that her elder brother had been seen the day before, roaming about the village although they did not know when or how he had arrived, that he had even gone to the convent and had been seen talking to her but that no one suspected anything but a brotherly call. Some other people said that he had not been seen at all. To me everything was confused. All the priests and nuns were in the habit of calling everyone brother and sister and mother and father and I had lost the sense of family relationship to a high degree. I remember thinking that perhaps they spoke of her brother because she was a Sister. In short, I don’t know what I thought of the whole thing.
I asked everyone I knew well. I asked my friends, but for once there was something about which Cavañitas and Alfau knew no more than myself. And then one day I spoke to my mother:
“Why do they think it so bad for a nun to take a trip with her own brother? I think it is perfectly all right, don’t you?”
My mother looked at me very intently and said slowly:
“Yes, of course. It is not that. It is because some valuables disappeared from the convent chapel and it seems that they took them.”
“And is that what they call incest?”
And my mother looked at me still more intently and took a step forward. I drew back as the scene of her coming on a white horse flashed through my mind and then she said:
“Well. not precisely,” and the tension was released and I feared to ask more.
And then the other thing happened which added so much consternation to the school and the whole village.
Three days after the foregoing incidents, Cavañitas, Alfau and myself were talking in the grounds of the school near the building. We were talking about Sister Carmela and Cavañitas was telling us of something he had heard from some priest. There were other boys and priests about.
Suddenly we heard a thud. I can hear that sound this very moment. It was like a clothesbasket falling on hard pavement, and we turned around and beheld about five yards away something like a dark bundle and a red liquid coming from it.
I still feel the chill I felt that moment. I don’t remember who cried first. I know I did not. I was paralyzed. But I heard voices and then some priests came forward and leaned over. The boys rushed up also and the name Padre Inocencio. Padre Inocencio. Padre Inocencio. filled the air carried by every mouth.
And once more, in my mind, I saw my mother advancing rhythmically, fatally on the white horse in time with the cries: Padre Inocencio, Padre Inocencio, Padre Inocencio.
This thing happening suddenly in the middle of our conversation about Sister Carmela created a fearful association between both things. I felt that there was an intimate connection between this sudden death and her elopement. It was such a shock that for an instant I thought and felt with unique clearness.
I knew for a second that the behavior of Sister Carmela must have affected Padre Inocencio as much as it affected me. For a moment I realized what I had felt all along for that extraordinary woman and what I felt I knew that others could feel also and a man more strongly. Why these thoughts swept my brain is a thing I do not know. And then I thought I had the key to the dramatic mystery. But now I doubt again.
Perhaps it was only my imagination, perhaps the other boys fancied strange things also, as clearly as I thought I did. We had so many shocks in those schooldays, we were so sleepy and tired, we suffered so many hallucinations. I even doubt now what I saw. Perhaps half was reality and half our fancy, perhaps half was a dream and half nightmare. We were pathologic cases, we were mad and insane; in short, we were the students, a bunch of emaciated nervous wrecks.
All this happened toward the end of the term. The next day the school was closed and we were told that Padre Inocencio had been the victim of an accident, that, while leaning out of a window, he had suffered a fainting spell and fallen down. But those words carried no weight. Why did they carry no weight? Why did we all know that it had been suicide? Why did we pick the disconnected happenings and weave them into a complete drama? Perhaps it was our childish intuition sharpened by all that suffering, by that maddening constant vigil, by the morbidity which we could not escape. Indeed, we were the students, but the problems of life which confronted us were just as puzzling and abstruse as the problems in our classes. They were forced upon us and were too much for our youthful hearts and minds. What we saw from life was as confusing as what we saw in books but more intense and puzzling and dramatic. As it was, it left a deeper track in our spirits and in our flesh and by creating a zone of inattention it helped to make the other things still more foggy.
I need not say how I felt, how we all felt after these last experiences. School became more and more unbearable if possible. I remember the Masses that were sung for the soul of Padre Inocencio as something terribly drowsy through which I invariably went to sleep. I remember that I felt incapable of going through with this life. I remember the overwhelming sleepiness and obsession of those two dogs, growing into a constant panic which maddened me and I felt in my senses that everything was coming to an end soon, that it could not last, that the drama was closing.