“You can see for yourself,” he would say. “You have only to look at my clothes to see how I am treated. They have been worn out and mended so often that it would be hard to tell which was the original stuff. Didn’t my father leave me an income of six hundred ducats? Why shouldn’t I be dressed decently? And as for eating, even without counting fast days, how often do I get meat? Very seldom, indeed. For my uncle says that gluttony is a mortal sin, and whenever he wants to punish me he makes me do without breakfast, dinner, or supper, and as he wants to punish me pretty often, the result is that I fast half the days in the year. That’s the reason that I am so thin and pale and weak, and in the end I shall die, not from any disease, but from starvation. Though my uncle does say that I look that way on account of my sins, and that I would be possessed by an evil spirit, if it were not for his fervent prayers which the good Lord has heard.” Whenever Jacinto spoke in this strain he appeared much moved, his eyes would become moist and at times he would even weep. And being a handsome young man, he always appealed to the women, so that he found plenty of defenders whenever he quarrelled with his uncle. The fair sex was his weakness, and his follies in this direction excited serious disgust in more than one of his acquaintances. When the young man reached his twenty-fifth year, his uncle surrendered to him his inheritance, in a greatly improved condition, and gave him some good advice besides. Jacinto felt like a man who has been a long time in prison and suddenly recovers his liberty. He threw himself with avidity into a life of dissipation that would have speedily accomplished his ruin if his good uncle had not continued his advice and sometimes admonished him severely. “I want to see the world,” said the young fellow at last, and gathering together all the money he could obtain, and bidding his uncle farewell, he took the road to Madrid, leaving behind him three women who had been foolish enough to believe in the love of a young scapegrace. Apart from this failing, Jacinto was very kind-hearted, and could not look upon distress unmoved. What was his object in going to Madrid? He wanted expansion, emotions, life, and went without any definite object. He had never been seriously in love, and, to his misfortune, the same fate as Señor Alonso’s overtook him. One day he saw Doña Luz on one of the balconies of her house, and, as we have mentioned, she neither looked at people on the sly, or sought to hide herself, as did her sisters. Jacinto stared at her, and she contemplated him with perfect tranquility. He felt that his heart was beating more strongly than usual, and Doña Luz, probably unconsciously, smiled. “Where am I?” cried the young man. “Not even in dreamland can one conceive such a vision of beauty.”