Note 1 — Chapter XXVI · The Persecuted.

“At my age, when a person makes a desperate resolution it is because there is no other course open. A man who, like me has passed his youth and the best years of his life working for his own future and for the future of his sons, a man who has been submissive to all the wishes of his superiors, who has discharged conscientiously all his duties, suffered everything in order to live in peace and in tranquillity; when such a man, whose blood has been chilled by Time, renounces all his past and all his future, on the very edge of his grave—when a man does this, it is because he has decided with mature judgment that peace does not exist, and that there is no Supreme Good. What use is there in living a few miserable days in a foreign land? I had two sons, a daughter, a fireside, a fortune. I enjoyed consideration and esteem. Now I am like a tree that has been stripped of its branches; a wandering fugitive, hunted like a wild beast in the forest, and all—why? Because a man dishonored my daughter, because her brothers wanted to make that man account for his infamous deed, and because that man is placed above all others with a title of Minister of God. But despite it all, I, a father, I, dishonored in my old age, pardoned the injury, for I was indulgent with the passions of youth and the weakness of the flesh, and, as the evil was irreparable, I wanted to save what still remained to me. But the criminal, afraid that vengeance was near at hand, sought the destruction of my sons. What did he do? You do not know? Do you know how they feigned that there had been a robbery in the convent and how one of my sons figured among the accused? The other son they could not include because he was away. Do you know the tortures to which they were submitted? You know them because they are like those in other towns. I saw my son hung by the hair, I heard his cries, I heard him call me, and, coward that I was, and, accustomed to peace, I was not brave enough to kill or be killed. Do you know that the robbery was not proved, that it was seen that it was a calumny, that the curate was transferred to another town and that my son died from the result of his tortures? The other boy, who was still left for me, was not a coward like his father. The executioner was afraid that this son would take revenge for the death of his brother and so, under pretense of his not having a cedula,1 which for the moment had been forgotten, he was imprisoned by the Civil Guard, maltreated, irritated and provoked by force and injuries until he was driven to suicide. And I have survived after such a disgrace. But, if I had not the courage of a father to defend his sons, I have left a heart to take vengeance and I shall be revenged! The discontented are uniting under my command, my enemies increase my camp, and on that day when I consider myself strong enough I will go down into the plain and extinguish in fire both my vengeance and my own existence. And that day will come or there is no God!”