to do some
frenzied deed that would prove to all the world the righteous indignation
of my breast in the punishment of the treacherous Don Fernando, and even
in that of the fickle fainting traitress. But my fate, doubtless
reserving me for greater sorrows, if such there be, so ordered it that
just then I had enough and to spare of that reason which has since been
wanting to me; and so, without seeking to take vengeance on my greatest
enemies (which might have been easily taken, as all thought of me was so
far from their minds), I resolved to take it upon myself, and on myself
to inflict the pain they deserved, perhaps with even greater severity
than I should have dealt out to them had I then slain them; for sudden
pain is soon over, but that which is protracted by tortures is ever
slaying without ending life. In a word, I quitted the house and reached
that of the man with whom I had left my mule; I made him saddle it for
me, mounted without bidding him farewell, and rode out of the city, like
another Lot, not daring to turn my head to look back upon it; and when I
found myself alone in the open country, screened by the darkness of the
night, and tempted by the stillness to give vent to my grief without
apprehension or fear of being heard or seen, then I broke silence and
lifted up my voice in maledictions upon Luscinda and Don Fernando, as if
I could thus avenge the wrong they had done me. I called her cruel,
ungrateful, false, thankless, but above all covetous, since the wealth of
my enemy had blinded the eyes of her affection, and turned it from me to
transfer it to one to whom fortune had been more generous and liberal.
And yet, in the midst of this outburst of execration and upbraiding, I
found excuses for her, saying it was no wonder that a young girl in the
seclusion of her parents' house, trained and schooled to obey them
always, should have been ready to yield to their wishes when they offered
her for a husband a gentleman of such distinction, wealth, and noble
birth, that if she had refused to accept him she would have been thought
out of her senses, or to have set her affection elsewhere, a suspicion
injurious to her fair name and fame. But then again, I said, had she
declared I was her husband, they would have seen that in choosing me she
had not chosen so ill but that they might excuse her, for before Don
Fernando had made his offer, they themselves could not have desired, if
their desires had been ruled by r