Juanita la Larga: a Novel

Chapter 21

Chapter 21 Don Paco was hurt and charmed at the same time with what he read in the letter, which he characterized as very discreet and which he saw as having been dictated by Juanita. If she had accepted him as a husband, Don Paco’s contentment would have been great, but his estimation of Juanita’s worth less than what it was then on being jilted. Perhaps a vague suspicion that Juanita was seizing her opportunity would have spoiled the contentment of seeing that she was accepting him. If it hurt him in the extreme for her to declare that she did not love him, he could not help applauding the honesty of the declaration. Don Paco was in agreement with the assessment of the aggravating circumstances that militated against the marriage and that made it appear to any sensible judgment as a likely source of misfortune and calamities. Hence the fact that his feelings on reading the letter were of sorrow and mortification because of Juanita’s indifference; of admiration and applause because of the girl’s prudent conduct; and of greater affection for her, both because of the noble frankness with which she set forth the grounds that justified her disdain, and because of the sweet ways in which she tried to soften it. Don Paco also recognized that it was very important that his proposal and the subsequent rejection not become known, and although he did not have the courage to tear up or burn what he wrote and Juana’s answer, he hid both letters in the most secret compartment of his desk. Moreover, he tried to overcome his sadness and see if he could forget Juanita, or at least if he continued to love her, to love her 109 calmly and half-heartedly, so as to wait for God to make time bearable without his losing patience, since hope is the last thing that is lost in life. And for the present, either to forget or to cool or chill his fervent passion, he resolved not to set foot again in Juanita’s house and to avoid running into her in church, in the street, and in the square. Meanwhile, as she was not very fond of solitude and very much enjoyed Don Paco’s conversation, Juanita bemoaned the isolation and deplored the sacrifice that she had had to make. But when she was alone with her conscience, she searched deep down in her soul and, with the highly remarkable clear-sightedness and impartial serenity with which she looked at everything, she repeatedly engaged in the subtle reflections that we shall attempt to express here in the following soliloquy: “It serves me right. Up till now I’ve lived a wild life, very footloose and fancy-free. My mother, may God forgive me if I’m offending her, has little good sense, although it may well be that she loses it on account of her great love for me. In any case, the fact is that between the two of us we’ve done no end of foolish things. It’s fitting that we pay for them. I shouldn’t complain. In the first place, since I’m a young woman of marriageable age and don’t occupy a certain position, but wish to, I should have stopped going for water at the fountain and washing at the pool. I should’ve shown more refinement. And since I didn’t, it was an even bigger mistake to want all of a sudden to transform myself into a lady and outshine and shock and excite the envy and fury of the hoity-toity women in this town. My abrupt transformation might still have been successful if I had managed beforehand to earn the good will of the very powerful and illustrious Señora Doña Inés López de Roldán. But, far from that, what I did was earn her ill will. If Don Paco’s company pleased me and amused me, I never gave any thought to marrying him, so now it’s as well that I lament another folly of mine, another utterly complete lack of caution on my mother’s and my part. To what end did we receive Don Paco at a tertulia every night, some110 Juanita la Larga Juanita la Larga 111 times alone and sometimes in Antoñuelo’s company, which is almost worse? We...