- Drive that poor thing … You can not understand certain things, you send in the affections with the same arrogance that available before the people. You think I can quit? I’m his mother in spite of everything, and a mother and know how to tolerate and forgive. The unfortunate not to blame for their evil thoughts: it was you who suggested it. Besides, it will, I hope that I have will vanish their crazy ideas.

The assumption of leaving the invalid excited his pity, giving his words a loving tone.

– What would happen to him! Do not know anyone, is alone in the world, the other officers live in their homeland, have families … Before he could go for Clorinda, now “the General” has gone and I’m only, the only one! … And you want to forget it? You do not know him well: you are his enemy. I remember with delight his age of innocence. It was just my son, no, there was something else: an appreciation, a veneration reconcentrated I had never known. Forget the fragility of their existence. He does the same: do not know your real situation, feel the illusions of healthy youth, believed to have many, many years. Poor! The effort cost me pretend anger, outraged by the desire to repel it has placed in me … me, I just want to be your mother!

This tone of sweet pity smote the listener. Alicia seemed to feel remorse for witnessing the last hours of a man condemned to death and must deny the satisfaction of his last whim. He complained and the nurse can not give what he asks from dying gasps of agony.

Miguel believed guess the secret of the last interviews between maternal lady and her godson. Maybe she talked about her health, leaving a time of praise in his dreams, discovering the danger that was his life, and the other with the burning passion suicide, imploring the same as a child who has put all happiness in the conquest of a toy, “Once, just once more!”