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Stories by Foreign Authors: Spanish by Unknown
page 17 of 163 (10%)

"'Wait a little longer, Gabriel. Do not yet pronounce judgment in this
case, where my life and soul are concerned. Listen to me two minutes
longer.

"'When I entered my house I met Colonel Falcon, who had just come to tell
me that my Joaquina, my betrothed, all my hope and happiness and joy on
earth, had died the day before in Santa Agueda. The unfortunate father had
telegraphed Falcon to tell me--me, who should have divined it an hour
before, when I met the evil spirit of my life! Don't you understand, now,
that I must kill that born enemy of my happiness, that vile old hag, who
is the living mockery of my destiny?

"'But why do I say kill? Is she a woman? Is she a human being? Why have I
had a presentiment of her ever since I was born? Why did she recognize me
when she first saw me? Why do I never see her except when some great
calamity has befallen me? Is she Satan? Is she Death? Is she Life? Is she
Antichrist? Who is she? What is she?'"


V.

"I will spare you, my dear friends," continued Gabriel, "the arguments and
remarks which I used to see if I could not calm Telesforo, for they are
the same, precisely the same, which you are preparing now to advance to
prove that there is nothing supernatural or superhuman in my story. You
will even go further; you will say that my friend was half crazy; that he
always was so; that, at least, he suffered from that moral disease which
some call 'panic terror,' and others 'emotional insanity'; that, even
granting the truth of what I have related about the tall woman, it must
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