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204 [ 22 ] ROSITA’ S RE V ENGE AFter the eveNts related in the previous chapter, a week had already passed and nothing was known in Villabermeja of Don Faustino’s whereabouts. His mother, torment-ridden, attempted to no avail to find out where her beloved son was. Rosita, meanwhile, furious with jealousy and the affronts that she had suffered, spread word everywhere that Don Faustino , head over heels in love with María, had fled with her, signing on as a brigand in Joselito el Seco’s band. Since someone claimed that Joselito’s people had been near the town the night that Don Faustino fled, and since not only Rosita, but Jacintica too, regarded María’s love affair with the doctor as certain, nobody in Villabermeja—save Father Piñón—doubted that Don Faustino was with the brigands by choice. The very ruin of the house of Mendoza lent credence in the eyes of the townspeople to the fact that Don Faustino had adopted such a heroic measure to get out of financial straits. Father Piñón was the only person who knew that María had not gone off with the doctor, the only person who knew where María was, but he did not want to confide that information to anyone. He reasoned, moreover, that Don Faustino, not of his volition , but much against his will, had fallen in the hands of the thieves, but since affirming this conclusion would have caused Doña Ana more grief than consolation, Father Piñón kept his own counsel. Rosita did not believe that she was lying when she proclaimed to the world that the doctor was with María and the outlaws. She took it all for granted. The result was that her jealous rage con- ROSITA’S RE VE NGE 205 stantly egged her on, and she did not cease even for a moment to incite her father to avenge her. Don Juan Crisóstomo Gutiérrez, although miserly, usurious, and not very scrupulous when it came to morals, had two character traits that would have moved him to act kindly in that situation if Rosita had not pushed him, and pushed him hard. Don Juan Crisóstomo was sympathetic and cowardly. On the one hand, Doña Ana’s distress inspired compassion in him, but he did not want it to grow. On the other, persuaded, like Rosita, that Don Faustino had become a brigand, he feared that the doctor in his turn would come to take revenge, either by seizing him to kill him or, at the very least, to give him a beating, or else by going to his country houses to set fire to one of them, or to break the earthenware jars and the casks, spilling the olive oil, wine, and vinegar and making a tragic mishmash of all of it. The figure of the doctor, accompanied by Joselito el Seco and a troop of bandits, was the poor notary’s nightmare. While asleep, he dreamed that they had already kidnapped him and were torturing him; while awake, he feared that he would come face to face with the doctor or one of his emissaries among the men approaching him. But if the notary trembled at the prospect of arousing the doctor’s wrath, he trembled still more before Rosita. Rosita put him between a rock and a hard place. What alternative did he have? How was he to resist the commands of that imperious daughter, that tyrant of his will, frenetic at the time with rage? There was no other recourse. The notary called together the creditors, who obeyed him more than any two-bit little banker can obey a Rothschild, and gathered outstanding debts against the house of Mendoza to the tune of nearly eight thousand duros. They were all in the form of deeds and payable promissory notes, and had not been renewed, thus leaving the debtor at the mercy of the creditors, who continued to collect interest as long as it suited them, or as long as they did not vent their anger, and who, not content with the interest, likewise demanded a large dosage of humility and gratitude, under pain of displeasure that would prompt the creditor to ask at once for the debt capital, threatening the debtor with attachment. Such was the state of the house of Mendoza through the mismanagement of the deceased Don Francisco, and the scant ability, negligence, and bad luck of Don...

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