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country. A funeral. Doña Guillermina’s profound prudence. Don Pepe’s energy and gaiety. When Balcárcel pronounces that life in the old days was better in every way, Rodolfo and Asunción respectfully agree, and obedient Jaime does too. Balcárcel raises a finger and his voice: “Today morality is not what it was. Our obligation, decidedly, is to maintain those good old customs and to preserve respect for family in the midst of a society that is in serious crisis.”
    Following this summarizing statement, Asunción rings the little silver bell and the servant comes in and takes away the plates. Rodolfo excuses himself and with slow steps leaves the dining room. They are all sleepy; it is siesta time. Their voices fade into silence. Doors are closed, curtains drawn. What silence those drowsy afternoons! The colonial city marks its hours with lost bells. From far-away fields comes the sound of grazing cattle. And in the silence of the siesta, just as at night, the boy is alone but does not feel alone. He is united with his family, both present and past, living and dead. He never wakes afraid of the dark.
    At six he begins primary school. Revolutionary religious persecution has closed the church schools, and in the public ones, socialism is the official doctrine. He studies in a private home, the Senores Oliveros, along with most of the children of Guanajuato’s rich Catholic gentry. At first a servant walks with him to the Oliveros, and comes for him in the afternoon when classes end. Soon he can go alone.
    He has, instead of a briefcase, a little leather knapsack that straps on his back. Asunción takes care of it for him, puts into it the books and notebooks he will need today, sharpens his pencils, replaces erasers. She attends him devotedly at breakfast. She offers him sugared bread, more fruit, a glass of milk. Balcárcel observes and one morning remarks:
    â€œYou mama the child decidedly too much. Jaime, are you prepared for your arithmetic lesson?”
    â€œYes, Uncle.”
    â€œI was always the first in my class when I was your age, and I shall not tolerate my nephew to be second. Discipline in studies is the neccessary foundation for discipline in life. Are you afraid you will fail this year?”
    â€œNo, Uncle.”
    â€œWell, you ought to be. You should study for your examinations with the fear of a zero hanging over you. There is no other way to prepare conscientiously. The teacher always knows far more than his scholars, and he can fail the most studious.”
    â€œYes, Uncle.”
    At seven he makes his First Communion, and his aunt begins to offer him religious readings: devotionals, missals, stories about the Virgin of Guadalupe, the Lives of the Saints. He goes with her, very early every morning, to Mass in the church of San Roque. At six every afternoon there are Rosary prayers in the big bedroom. Every Feast Day in the Church Calendar is celebrated, every Day of Obligation rigorously observed. Religion surrounds him until it becomes the very air he breathes.
    The boy’s faith is concrete and childish. As he studies catechism with Father Obregón, preparing for his First Communion, there are many words he does not understand. “Mass is the bloodless sacrifice of the law of grace.” “The Church is Christ’s spouse.” He repeats and memorizes mechanically, these are mere words; for him Mass and the Church are the movements and gestures of the rich-robed priest before the golden altar, movements and gestures which he also memorizes and repeats in the secrecy of his bedroom. There, kneeling in front of the chair that is his improvised altar, he frowns and murmurs the prayers which begin Mass. He is afraid that he has forgotten some essential gesture or confused the order of the ritual: What comes next? Yes, the Introit and now the Kyrie Eleison. The Epistle. He does not speak aloud, he merely moves his mouth silently, for these words