“But in a dispute over money and by reason of my haughty disposition at that time, I alienated the good will of a distant relative, and one day he cast in my face my doubtful birth and shameful descent. I thought it all a slander and demanded satisfaction. The tomb which covered so much rottenness was again opened, and to my consternation the whole truth came out to overwhelm me. To add to our sorrow, we had had for many years an old servant who had endured all my whims without ever leaving us, contenting himself merely with weeping and groaning at the rough jests of the other servants. I don’t know how my relative had found it out, but the fact is that he had this old man summoned into court and made him tell the truth—that old servant, who had clung to his beloved children, and whom I had abused many times, was my father! Our happiness faded away, I gave up our fortune, my sister lost her betrothed, and with our father we left the town to seek refuge elsewhere. The thought that he had contributed to our misfortunes shortened the old man’s days, but before he died I learned from his lips the whole story of the sorrowful past. “My sister and I were left alone. She wept a great deal, but, even in the midst of such great sorrows as heaped themselves upon us, she could not forget her love. Without complaining, without uttering a word, she saw her former sweetheart married to another girl; but I watched her gradually sicken without being able to console her. One day she disappeared and it was in vain that I sought everywhere, in vain I made inquiries about her. About six months afterward I learned that about that time, after a flood on the lake, there had been found in some rice-fields bordering on the beach at Calamba the corpse of a young woman who had been either drowned or murdered, for she had had, so they said, a knife sticking in her breast. The officials of that town published the fact in the country round about; but no one came to claim the body, no young woman apparently had disappeared. From the description they gave me afterward of her dress, her ornaments, the beauty of her countenance, and her abundant hair, I recognized in her my poor sister. “Since then I have wandered from province to province. My reputation and my history are in the mouths of many. They attribute great deeds to me, sometimes calumniating me, but I pay little attention to men, keeping ever on my way. Such in brief is my story, a story of one of the judgments of men.” Elias fell silent as he rowed along.