"Let me die!" she cried. "I can bear life no
longer." To Mary and the saints she appealed with a
passionate grief that was distressing to witness. All the
efforts of her husband and her children failed to sooth her;
and, as often happens in a complication of troubles, she
seized upon the most trifling as the text of her complaint.
"I cannot eat corn bread; I have always detested it. I am
hungry. I am perishing for my chocolate. And I have no
clothing. I am ashamed of myself. I thank the saints I
have no looking-glass. Oh, Roberto! Roberto! What have
you done to your Maria?"
"My dear wife! My dear, dear wife! Be patient a little
longer. Think, love, you are not alone. There are women here
far more weary, far more hungry; several who, in the
confusion, have lost their little children; others who are
holding dying babes in their arms."
"Giver of all good! give me patience. I have to say to you
that other women's sorrows do not make me grateful for my own.
And Santa Maria has been cruel to me. Another more cruel, who
can find? I have confessed to her my heartache about Juan;
entreated her to bring my boy to me. Has she done it?"
"My darling Maria."
"Grace of God, Roberto! It is now the twenty-third of March;
I have been seventeen days wandering with my daughters like
very beggars.
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