Women Have Crossed Themselves And Run From Me In Terror To Seek The
Holy Water Bottle Blessed By The Father.
Doors have been shut in my
face, and angry voices bade me begone, at the instigation of this
black-robed believer in the Virgin.
Congregations of worshippers in
the dark-aisled church have listened to a fabulous description of my
mission and character, until the barber would not cut my hair or the
butcher sell me his meat! Many a mother has hurriedly called her
children in and precipitately shut the door, that my shadow in
passing might not enter and pollute her home. Perhaps a senorita,
more venturesome, with her black hair hanging in two long plaits
behind each shoulder, has run to her iron-barred window to smile at
me, and then penitently fallen before her patron saint imploring
forgiveness, or hurried to confess her sin to the wily padre. If
the confession was accompanied by a gift, she has been absolved by
him; if she were poor, her tear-stained face, perhaps resembling that
of the suffering Madonna over the confessional, has moved his heart
to tenderness, for well he knows that
"Maidens, like moths, are ever caught by glare,
And Mammon wins his way where seraphs might despair."
The punishment imposed has only been that she repeat fifty or a
hundred Ave Marias or Paternosters. Poor deluded creature! Her
sin only consisted in permitting her black eyes to gaze on me as I
passed down the street.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 54 of 313
Words from 14413 to 14663
of 83353
