“But in the name of God!” I said, dumfounded. “About whom are you saying all these things? About Eulalia? I would have put my head on the block that that old story was totally over and done with!”
“Oh!” he said after some hesitation. “The ‘old story’ is over and done with, but ‘the consequences’ remain! …” And he pronounced these last words with such desperate sadness, that I no longer doubted that the reason for his present condition was that unhappy love affair. But why? The catastrophe had taken place a long time before his departure for Germany, and however traumatic the shock to his heart had been, Paschális had borne it with courage and remarkable dignity, during the time that his wound was still fresh.
It’s true I had contributed a lot towards this, getting him into the habit of d
