When there were the unforgettable characters in colonial times, when we have at hand ancient testimonies and real names and events are shuffled, one can not say that it is a myth, a legend or an invention product of the minds of the century. If anything the facts with literary twists and tasty additions to adorn a story more fun for very different reasons and took Patent legend. With respect to the names that appear in this story, nor has anything changed and if they vary is because at the time they were used differently names and coats of arms.
For many years, as recorded in the minutes of the ancient convent of the Conception, which today would be located at the corner of Santa Maria la Redonda and Belisario Dominguez, cloistered nuns in such gloomy institution, came to suffer the presence of a white and ghastly figure in her nun's habit of that order, saw hanging from one of the peach trees that then existed. Each time one of the novices or professed had to go to a night mission and crossed the courtyard and gardens of the interior cells, they not resisted the temptation to look in the crystal clear waters of the fountain in the center was and what happened then. Behind them, swaying to the light breeze blow noctural, they saw that novice slope of a rope, his eyes out of their sockets and his tongue as a foot out of the twisted and parched lips; his hands and feet together with tips pointing down slippers.
The nuns fled in panic crying out to God and superiors, and when he came and tornera abbess or mother who was the oldest and the most daring, and this horrible vision was gone.
So, night after night and nun after nun, the ghost of the novice hanging peach was a horror for many years and nothing earned prayers and masses and harsh punishment or blows with sackcloth for the macabre vision to stay away from the holy house , even said at the time that is not even talking or studying these things, that it was a collective vision, a classic case of hysteria caused by the forced closure of religious.
More cruel truth was hidden in the ghostly apparition of that nun hanged, hung peach and went back to many years before, it must be noted that the Convento de la Concepcion was the first to be built in the Capital of New Spain (just 22 years after the Conquest and should not be confused convent-monastery of monks women-men), and therefore the first to receive as novices to daughters, relatives and acquaintances of the Spanish conquistadors.
Lived since then in the corner that today would be the streets of Argentina and Guatemala, precisely where it was located for many years after a canteen, the Avila brothers, who were Gil, Alfonso and Dona Maria which for obscure reasons enrolled in history as Maria de Alvarado.
Well this Dona Maria she was pretty and great poise, fell in love with a certain Arrutia, mestizo of humble birth and of uncertain origin, who saw the deep infatuation that had provoked in Dona Maria tried to make her his wife in order to gain women , fortune and lineage.
In such affairs the Avila brothers, especially the so-called Alonso de Avila, who call one afternoon disrespectful and haughty mestizo, acquainting banned in an affair with his sister objected.
Nothing podeís do if she loves me cynically said that Arrutia-, as the heart of your time is my sister; You can oponeros all you want, nothing will succeed.
Annoyed Alonso de Avila went to his house before that corner and centuries later called the Relox and ladders respectively and spoke to his brother Gil who told him what happened. Gil thought of killing the villain in a duel that faced them, but Alonso best thinking things, said the subject was such a despicable mestizo could not be measured by the sword against either of them and it would be better to give him a lesson. Thinking better things decided to gather a good amount of money and offered it to the mestizo for it to go away forever from the capital of New Spain, because with the money offered could be installed elsewhere and put a lucrative business.
It is said that the metizo accepted without saying goodbye to the woman who had come to love him so intensely, went to Veracruz and from there to other places, leaving spend months and two years, during which time, the unhappy Dona Maria Alvarado suffered , suffered, she cried and moaned like a shadow over the manor of the Avila brothers, their brothers as the story goes.
Finally, seeing both suffer and mourn the beloved, Alonso Gil and decided to convince Dona Maria to let a novice in a convent. They chose the de la Concepción and gather after another hefty sum as dowry, went to enclose saying that the mestizo because of their love and their troubles would never return to his side, knowing for a fact that had died.
Without much will Dona Maria entered the said monastery as a novice, where he began to take the sad cloistered life, but still mourn the pain of love, recalling the mestizo Arrutia between prayers, angelus and matins. At night, in the tremendous solitude of his cell he forgot his love of God, faith and everything and just thought of that mestizo who had sucked through and through and planted wish your heart.
Finally, one night, unable to resist the passion that was much stronger than his faith, which completely overshadowed his religion, decided to kill himself before the silence beloved whose return became known, because the mestizo had again asked more money to the Avila brothers.
He took a braided cord and another to make it stronger, even though his body because of the passion and fasting had become frail and pale. He knelt before the crucified to whom he apologized for not being able to marry to profess and went to the convent garden and fountain.
He tied the rope to a branch of peach and returned to pray for God's forgiveness for what I was going to do and leave the mestizo beloved in this world.
He rushed down .... His feet hit the rim of the fountain.
And there he was swinging, swinging like a fragile white pendulum moved by the wind.
The next day the caretaker mother went to check the heavy latches and hinges of the door of the convent, saw her hanging, dead.
The stiff and Maria Alvarado body was taken down and buried that afternoon inside the convent cemetery and there seemed to end that love drama.
However, a month later, one of the novices saw the horrible appearance reflected in the waters of the fountain. In this appearance they were followed by others, until the upper output forbade the nuns to the garden after the sun set.
It seemed that a terrible fate, the most tragic chasing this family, three stems of Dona Leonor Alvarado and Don Gil Gonzalez Benavides, then hanged Maria de Alvarado in the manner as above is said, his two brothers and Alonso Gil Avila were involved in that conspiracy or coup led by Don Martin Cortes, son of the conqueror Hernan Cortes discovered this conspiracy and jailed the Avila brothers, summarily tried and sentenced to death.
The July 16, 1566 mounted embarrassing, humiliated and vilified mounts, the two Avila, Alonso Gil and brothers were taken to the gallows where they were slaughtered. By orders of the Royal Court and greater punishment for daring of the two Avila, his house was destroyed and the sun that the earth was plowed and seeded with salt.