up to the present time, never a letter or a scrap of news, good or
ill. I thought you had died, Gabriel, in those distant lands, and more
than once I have prayed for your poor soul, that I am sure wanted it."

The "companion" showed in his eyes his gratitude for these words.

"Thanks, Esteban. I admire your faith, but I did not come out of that
dark adventure as well as you imagine. It would have been far better
to have died. The aureole of a martyr is worth more than to enter a
dungeon a man and come out of it a limp rag. I am very ill, Esteban,
my sentence is irrevocable. I have no stomach left, my lungs are gone,
and this body that you see is like a dislocated machine that can
hardly move, creaking in every joint, as though all the bits intended
to fall apart. The Virgin who saved me at your recommendation might
really have interceded a little more in my favour, softening my
jailors. Those wretches think to save the world by giving free rein
to those wild beast instincts that slumber in us all, relics of a
far-away past. Since then, at liberty, life has been more painful than
death. On my return to Spain, pressed by poverty and persecution, my
life has been a hell. I dare stop in no place where men congregate;
they hunt me like dogs, forcing me to live out of the towns, driving
me to the mountains, into the deserts, where no human beings live. It
appears I am still a man to be feared, more to be feared than those
desperadoes who throw bombs, because I can speak, because I carry in
me an irresistible strength which forces me to preach the Truth if
I find myself in the presence of miserable and trodden-down
wretches--but all this is coming to an end. You may be easy, brother,
I am a dead man; my mission is drawing to a close, but others will
come after me, and again others. The furrow is open and the seed is in
its bowels--'GERMINAL!'[1] as a friend of my exile shouted as he saw