In fact, Antón Pérez, braced between the roots of the tree, in the immovableness of death, the life concentrated in his eyes, participated in his own torture, like those guilty immortals, whom Alighieri’s pitiless fancy created. Bloodless, annihilated, yet he felt himself living. Who ever had seen the gleam of his eyes, would have known that his conscience was accusing him. What implacable moral law had he broken, that his punishment should be so horribly prolonged, by his marvelous vitality? Was it because he had loved madly? that he had aspired to raise himself to a sphere higher than that, in which he had been born? that he had endured, perhaps disgracefully, the scorn and the disdain of the human being whom he had worshiped? Why had he not deserved Rosalba? Why had God made her so bewitching? _Where_ was his sin? Perhaps that he had passed from the flag of the Republic to the Imperial standards? And was he, perchance, the only one? Were not a thousand distinguished Mexicans aiding and defending the new cause, shown to be pleasing to Heaven, by the rapidity with which it had spread and gained proselytes? Did not God’s ministers suggest it in the confessional and, even, preach it in the pulpit? Was not that cause, indeed, to be the savior of Mexico?--Where was his sin? Thus, in his moments of lucidity, the unhappy condemned being thought, and then fell into lethargies from which he again, presently, aroused himself. How slow and tedious the passage of the hours! And the sun continued to mount at its accustomed speed and, now, gained its greatest height. Piercing through the leafy branches, its rays designed odd patches of sunlight on the ground which every breeze complicated into fantastic deformations. The nymph of light amused herself at her fancy, with such sports.