The ices were being served and the dinner was drawing to a close. All of a sudden, in the midst of the slightly laboured and frivolous conversation which occasionally gave place to the species of pompous gravity, Francesco Serlupi, a young man celebrated for his blunders, which assumed either a grotesque or dramatic aspect, again committed one of them.
“Do you know that the Fiore couple have returned home from their honeymoon? It seems that things are not going too well.”
A glacial silence fell on all.
Maria Guasco, behind the huge mass of white lilies and red roses, which almost hid her, had not even moved an eyelid; Emilio, taciturn as ever, had lowered his eyes. The other guests, Flaminia Colonna, Gianni Provana, and the Senator, Fabio Guasco, seemed distracted.
“It seems that the Costanzi is to be closed for a week,” remarked Gianni Provana, in an attempt to change the conversation.
But Francesco Serlupi stuck to his gaucherie, and proclaimed obstinately—
“However, it is as I have said, Marco Fiore returned to the club yesterday, the day following his return, and yesterday he was at the races without Vittoria.”
Again a heavy silence. Maria, with a fervid glance, invoked the aid of Flaminia. She promptly, with her penetrating voice, which was the complement of her dark and proud figure, and of her beauty full of grace and expression, said—
“I am not surprised at it. As a matter of fact Marco Fiore has always liked a club life; his mother, Donna Arduina, had always complained to me about it. Besides, Vittoria has such a reserved and timid character.” She emphasised her slow and tactful remark, fixing her sweet grey eyes on Francesco, to make him understand that he must say no more on the subject. He, as usual, understood too late the mischief he had done, and became silent, keeping his head bent over his plate, not daring to look at his hosts, anxious to escape, as he always did, when he discovered he had committed an enormous indiscretion.
“Are these delicious early peaches from Lama, Emilio?” asked Mario Colonna, to divert the conversation better, alluding to the great property of Casa Guasco near Terni.
“Yes,” replied his host immediately, glad to be able to open his mouth and speak of something else; “my gardens there work miracles, and also my gardeners. Every day new flowers and fruit arrive.”
“Oh, you must be very happy about it, Maria,” observed Flaminia, with a good-natured smile on her lips.
“Oh, most happy,” she murmured.
“You ought to love La Lama, Donna Maria,” remarked Francesco Serlupi, in an endeavour to mend matters; “it is some time since you were there?”
But the question was put in a low voice, besides, the dinner was finished, so his hostess rose suddenly without replying to this latest piece of stupidity, and leaning on the arm of Senator Fabio Guasco the other guests followed her, Flaminia Colonna on the arm of Emilio, Gianni Provana, Francesco Serlupi, and Mario Colonna in a group.
“However did it come into your head?” said Gianni Provana to Serlupi, keeping him back a little with Mario Colonna. “No one will ask you to dinner, my dear friend, if you start breaking the dishes in your host’s face at dessert.”
“You are right; I am a proper stupid,” Serlupi declared, as they crossed the two or three rooms before the drawing-room, “I shall go away at once; I can’t stop here.”
“Worse and worse,” observed Colonna; “stop a moment or two longer.”
“You are going away with Donna Flaminia, aren’t you?”
“Yes, we can’t possibly stay. We are going to Madame Takuhira’s last reception at the Japanese Legation.”
“Do me a charity and take me away with you,” begged Serlupi.
“Very well, very well,” said Colonna, laughing, “we will save you even to the last indiscretion.”
A circle was formed in the large drawing-room, all gathering in a corner of it where Maria had formed a little room from the larger with screens, large plants, and furniture, which cut off the space. However, the conversation proceeded languidly, the sort of coldness which had been there since the beginning of dinner had become accentuated after Francesco Serlupi’s escapade. It was the first dinner Emilio and Maria had given after her return home, thus resuming their old custom of giving, during the chief Roman season from December to the end of May, two dinners a week, one to intimates, another of ceremony, the traditional hospitality in Casa Guasco and high Roman society. It had been Flaminia Colonna who had urged her friend to resume the habits of life where they had been relaxed; it had been Flaminia, too, who had said affectionately to Emilio Guasco, with a sweet smile, “Give us a dinner like you used to.”
With a feeling of concealed timidity, Emilio had only dared to invite persons of whom he was sure; his uncle, Fabio Guasco, the Colonna couple, and finally that silly Francesco Serlupi, who was a gracious youth incapable of an incivility, but more capable of committing a disaster with a remark, the importance of which he did not understand till later, much later. Maria, as hostess, had endeavoured to give an air of continuity to this resumption of worldly life, decorating her dining-room as formerly, receiving her friends as formerly in that bright and flowery corner of the drawing-room, adorning her person with that studied elegance which distinguished her, and with which she satisfied her æsthetic tendencies, producing that impression of sympathy and fascination on her surroundings which was so appreciated. That evening she was dressed in black voile, affording a glimpse of neck and bosom, white in their perfect lines. A cluster of fresh red roses was placed at the opening, nestling on the whiteness of the skin, and rendering it more intense. A tall, stiff collar of small pearls in ten rows, with a clasp in front of rubies and diamonds, surrounded her neck; the bodice of the dress had half-sleeves embroidered with black wavy tulle, which did not reach to the elbow, and showed her magnificent white round arms with their delicate wrists. Her hands were loaded with rings, all in the ancient style, and in her hair, amidst its waves and dark abundance, were two little bright red roses. A quite interior exaltation had rendered more splendid her bright eyes, so often closed and disturbed. That evening she had experienced a sudden pride of energy and beauty.
But in spite of this a subtle sense of embarrassment and pain weighed on the dinner, and all the ordered luxury of the table, the exquisiteness of the viands, the richness of the surroundings, the serenity of the hostess, and the solicitous courtesy of the host had not caused this impression to be removed from the mind of their guests. This impression after Francesco Serlupi’s imprudent words became stronger; every one felt oppressed, and sought a decent and amiable excuse for leaving. Donna Maria allowed smoking in her room after dinner; but the men discreetly retired to a far corner, so, as they said, not to fumigate the two ladies. For some minutes Maria and Flaminia Colonna remained alone.
“What a bad experiment, eh, Flaminia, this dinner?” said Maria, with a sneer and a bitter smile.
“One wants much patience, immense patience,” replied the friend, shaking her expressive and gracious Roman head.
“Oh, not for me,” added Maria; “for myself I am ready to endure any pain. It displeases me on Emilio’s account.”
“He suffers, doesn’t he?” asked Flaminia, in a subdued voice.
“He suffers too much,” Maria assented sadly. Then she got up suddenly to serve the coffee and liqueurs, which had been placed before her. Her tall, undulating person possessed a great charm, as she lightly crossed the room, carrying a cup in her hands, while she offered it with a smile on her beautiful mouth to the men. She could see the admiration in all their eyes, and she seemed to see it mixed with confusion in her husband’s. She looked at him rather long, and between them, in those glances exchanged, it seemed as if a whole world of thoughts and sentiments had passed. With her rhythmical step Maria returned to her friend.
“Is it true what has been said?” she asked, sitting down.
“What?”
“That ... Marco and Vittoria already make a couple of doubtful happiness.”
“What does it matter to you?” replied Flaminia, looking at her with suspicion.
“It matters to me,” replied the other seriously; “I wished for their happiness.”
“But what do you desire?” said Flaminia a little diffidently.
“I desire with all my soul that they may be happy,” said Maria.
The friend believed her, because she recognised her as a creature incapable of lies or falseness.
“I believe that your desire of good for them cannot be a reality.”
“Do you know it then?”
“I know it.”
Maria sighed.
“Later on, with time,” concluded Donna Flaminia, with her sense of justice and equilibrium.
“One wants such patience, immense patience,” rejoined Maria Guasco dreamily.
The company began to break up. Flaminia and Mario Colonna had to go to the Japanese Legation. Francesco Serlupi, silently occupied with his flight, followed them, almost holding on to their shoulders, as if to hide himself. When the Senator Fabio Guasco took his leave as well, accustomed to early hours, he kissed his niece’s hand, bowing with much gallantry as he begged her not to forget her old uncle in her invitations. Emilio Guasco, who had not said a single word since dinner, announced that he was going to accompany him. So only Gianni Provana remained, immovable, always tranquil, with his monocle fixed in its orbit. Quietly and tactfully Maria made her way to her husband, and asked him in a low voice—
“Are you going out?”
“Yes,” he replied quietly.
“Why are you going?”
“To accompany uncle.”
“Are you returning soon?”
“I don’t know.”
“Take away Gianni Provana too,” she suggested.
“But why?” he asked, with a little irony; “I don’t want you to remain alone.”
“Take him away; take him away,” she murmured, troubled and nervously.
“Are you afraid of him?” the husband asked mockingly.
“No,” she replied proudly, “I am not afraid of any one.”
She turned her back on him, greeting and kissing her friend, giving her hand to the men to kiss, and to her husband as well. Did not his lips seem to linger a little longer on her hand?
Gianni Provana remained as usual, the quiet and tenacious man, who allows nothing to disturb the plan he has formed for his existence. Without glancing at him, Maria threw herself into her favourite arm-chair, took a book with uncut leaves from a table, looked for a paper-knife, and, having found it, with the peculiar noise of cut paper, occupied her beautiful hands.
“I don’t bore you, Donna Maria?”
“No,” she replied, without raising her head.
“You would have preferred me to go with the others?”
“Perhaps,” she replied absently.
“You can’t bear me, isn’t it so?” he asked.
“You are mistaken, Provana.”
“Am I very antipathetic to you?”
“You are not antipathetic to me.”
“At any rate I am not sympathetic?”
“Certainly not,” she replied.
“Then indifferent,” and he bit his lip.
“Exactly; indifferent,” she concluded in a monotonous voice.
He got up quickly.
“Are you going?” she asked, rather surprised.
“For what am I to remain here? To hear this from you? The worst you could have told me you have told.”
The face of the worldling and pleasure-lover expressed at that moment true suffering.
She looked at him.
“Why are you obstinate, Provana,” she asked coldly and courteously, “in bothering about me, of what I think, of what I say, of what I do?”
“Because I am a fool,” he confessed, taking his monocle out of its orbit and looking at her, a familiar trick of his.
“You are not a fool,” she replied, with a little smile; “you are eagerly anxious to get something that seems necessary to you, which would instead be useless and dangerous to you, and which, through your good fortune, you will never obtain.”
“Everything has been said,” he murmured, offering her his hand, “good-night, Donna Maria.”
“Good-night, Provana.”
She offered her hand. He took it and kissed it, holding it a little in his own. In spite of his worldly composure, in spite of his mask of good form, he showed that he was moved.
“Can’t you really manage, Donna Maria, to consider me a man worthy of some attention and curiosity?” he asked, with some anxiety.
“Oh, I know you well!” she replied, shaking her head.
“You could be wrong.”
“No, I can’t be wrong. For several years you have been attempting the conquest of my—attention—let us call it attention—a question of self-love. You have possessed other women more beautiful, more elegant than I. You are accustomed to succeed, so you are irritated and sad because you can’t with me. You have begun to suffer because you can’t succeed with me, and so you have got as far as believing that you are really in love.”
“Alas, it is no supposition!” he replied melancholily, but with an accent of truth.
“Let us not speak of love,” she declared; “I oughtn’t to listen any more to such talk. My greedy ears are satiated with it, they are tired of it, and have become deaf to it for ever and ever.”
“Nevertheless, some one loves you here, Donna Maria.”
“Whoever?”
“Emilio!”
“You are mistaken,” she said gravely; “Emilio no longer loves me.”
“Really?” he asked anxiously.
“Really.”
“Is he not an impassioned lover, an enamoured husband, and a tender friend?”
“None of these things, Provana.”
“What is he, then?”
“An enemy perhaps,” she replied softly.
“But hasn’t he pardoned you?”
“He has pardoned me, yes. He has pardoned me, but nothing more.”
“I never would have believed it,” he said thoughtfully.
“Nor I.”
“But perhaps,” he resumed, questioning her with his glance, “you have frightened him and kept him at a distance with your contempt.”
“I have done all that is possible; I am doing all that is possible,” she said vaguely, as if speaking to herself.
“You don’t love him; he will have understood.”
“I am humiliated and humiliate myself every day!” Maria exclaimed in a sorrowful voice; “and I break my pride every instant before him. But I can’t tell him to love me; neither does he ask it of me. He asks me nothing.”
“And if he were to ask it?” he said.
“He won’t; he won’t. He has understood I can’t lie.”
“Poor Emilio!” he exclaimed.
“Do you pity him? Even I pity him. He has had pity on me, and I return it to him. But beyond this he can do nothing for me, and I can do nothing for him.”
The conversation had suddenly become austere. The worldling appeared preoccupied, the woman with her beautiful hands crossed on her knees was telling her tale as if in a dream. Gianni Provana looked two or three times at her. She was so young still, so flourishing in beauty, with every womanly grace, and he said to her—
“Is it possible that Emilio has no eyes, no heart, no feelings, that he doesn’t experience near you that invincible attraction which has made me ridiculous for years?”
“Who knows! Who knows!” she exclaimed wearily.
“What, in fact, do you think about your life?”
“I think nothing, Provana. I live my life as I do as a duty neither pleasant nor sad. I was hoping, and still hope, to give consolation for the undeserving sorrow I have sown. Now I don’t seem to be walking towards my goal. I don’t seem to be moving.”
“And how if your heart is elsewhere?” he said harshly; “you still love Marco Fiore.”
“If I loved him still I shouldn’t have returned,” she rejoined immediately, firmly. “I often think of him with tenderness and sweetness, but without love.”
“Have you heard? He isn’t happy,” he continued tartly.
“The fault isn’t mine, nor is it his. It is impossible that either he or I could ever be happy again. We knew it when we separated.”
“But Vittoria, it seems, is unhappy!” exclaimed Provana.
“Ah, that is very, very sad,” she said thoughtfully.
“Like your husband, for that matter,” added Provana.
“It is all immensely sad,” she concluded bitterly.
“The fault is neither yours nor Marco’s,” said Provana, with a sneer.
“You can only smile or laugh at all this,” and she glanced at him with disdain.
“Better to smile or laugh, Donna Maria. I am an optimist in my cynicism. Everything will gradually and slowly settle down.”
“How?” she asked, not without anxiety.
“Vittoria and Marco will end by adapting themselves to each other. He will have a son—perhaps two or three—and she will not bother any more about her husband. Marco will be older, and a monotonous frequenter of the club, the races, and other noble pursuits. Perhaps he will have a mistress or two whom he will not love, since he who has loved cannot love another woman with passion.”
“And here?” she asked, with a mocking laugh.
“Here, too, time will do its work. Emilio’s pardon will be, shall we say—active. He will love you tranquilly and faithfully as formerly, and you will again be an exemplary couple. Remorse will have ceased to bite yours and Marco’s heart; you may yet be two beautiful great souls. The years will be passed, and the four of you will even be able to see each other tranquilly.”
A strident and sardonic laugh punctuated the discourse, while he replaced his monocle in its orbit elegantly.
“And you, Provana?” asked the woman, laughing, too, ironically.
“Oh, I!” he exclaimed, with false bonhommie; “I am the man who waits. Vice versâ in waiting will come old age and death. So I shall pass to my ancestors with a beautiful and ridiculous epitaph: that of having loved Donna Maria Guasco uselessly.”
“It is even a big something to be able to love,” she remarked thoughtfully.
“That is what they say in novels and dramas; in life it is rather boring. Above everything the man who loves alone is the greatest bore of all. Good-night, Donna Maria.”
“Good-night,” she said, without detaining him.
An uncertain, melancholy, bitter dream settled on Maria’s soul.
* * * * * * * *
A voice awoke her from this dream.
“Good-evening, Maria.”
“Good-evening, Emilio.”
Her husband had entered without her noticing his step. He sat on the seat which Provana had left. It seemed to Maria that his face had become grave and thoughtful. She put down her book, and leaned her head, as if it were too heavy for her, on her beautiful hands. In the harmony of her movements, her womanly grace and fascination, in the silence of the moment, had something penetrating about it.
“Are you alone?” he asked.
“Provana went away a minute ago.”
“I met him near here, but he didn’t see me. What fine tales has he been telling you?” he resumed, with a disingenuous accent.
“Nothing very fine,” she replied.
“However, you must have listened to him with interest.”
“What makes you think that?” she said, trembling.
“I suppose it. The conversation has not been short, nor have you cut it short,” he added a little bitterly.
“Ah!” she exclaimed; “ought I to show the door to your Provana?”
“Mine? Mine? Isn’t he your friend?” he interrupted with agitation.
“No,” she replied precisely, “he is not my friend.”
“He makes love to you, however,” observed Emilio.
The tone was intended to appear indifferent, but if Maria had listened carefully and had regarded her husband’s face better, she would have understood that it was a question, and asked with anxiety. Instead, she shrugged her shoulders, and let it go without a reply. He repeated it.
“He makes love to you, doesn’t he?”
“Yes, perhaps; I believe so,” she murmured, letting her reply fall indifferently.
“He has always made love to you, hasn’t he?”
“Yes, he seems to have always done so,” she replied, with the same indifference and distraction.
“And you?” he said, in a sharp, hard voice which hurt her. Was he really Emilio who was questioning her so haughtily like a judge? Up to then the conversation had seemed to Maria one of those usual monotonous conversations in which every one speaks and thinks quite differently to what he says, and the lips pronounce empty words mechanically. Instead, she was suddenly aware that her husband wished imperiously to know the truth of her heart.
“I?” she replied, at once becoming sad and proud.
“You, you,” he replied, without changing his tone.
“What do you want to know from me?”
“If Gianni Provana’s suit pleases you, if it has ever pleased you, if it will ever please you?” he said coldly and cuttingly, drawing near to her, and looking at her with eyes full of anger.
She stepped back a little, certainly not in fright, but to measure this new sentiment of Emilio’s.
“What does it matter to you?” she asked slowly.
“It matters to me,” he replied, without changing either his accent or the expression of his face.
“Gianni Provana’s suit has never pleased me, does not please me, and never will please me.”
She pronounced the words slowly, letting them fall one by one, fixing her husband with her eyes. She saw his face change distinctly, the anger vanish which had transfigured him, and she heard his voice assume a lower tone, veiled with unfamiliar emotion.
“Why?” he asked; “why?”
“Because I despise him,” she concluded honestly, retiring again into a definite silence, as if she had nothing else to say, or wished to say, on that subject.
“I beg your pardon, Maria,” he whispered, drawing near her, his voice saddened and a little disturbed.
She glanced at him.
“It doesn’t matter,” she replied.
“I am certain I have offended you,” he insisted, still troubled.
“Yes, a little, but it doesn’t matter,” she added, with some pride.
“I must have seemed a little bit brutal to you, Maria,” he exclaimed remorsefully.
“A little,” she replied less proudly; “but it doesn’t matter.”
“Does nothing matter to you, then?” he asked, exasperated and sad.
She was silent and lowered her eyes, playing with her rings in a way that Emilio remembered.
“Will you give me your hand in token of peace?” he asked, with a false accent of easiness and frivolity.
“Yes,” she replied, giving him her hand.
“You bear me no rancour, Maria?” he continued with the same studied disingenuousness.
“No.”
“So be it,” he said, and he kissed the hand, and afterwards tried to keep it in his. She did not raise her eyes to his, and remained immobile and silent.
“Otherwise,” he resumed, as if continuing a discourse, “I find it quite reasonable that Gianni Provana should press his suit on you. Don’t get angry again,” he said, pressing the hand which she tried to withdraw, “his name annoys you; I won’t pronounce it again. I say finally that he is right to press his suit on you.”
She listened to him silently.
“Why are you so seducing?” he exclaimed weakly.
Was it the deception of the light, or did a slight flush diffuse itself over his face? But why did she say nothing to the man who was drawing his face nearer to hers and speaking so softly? What thought was restraining her? What sentiment was conquering her? The man was still bending, as if to snatch her from her silence, to snatch a word from her, which would not issue from the tightly closed lips.
“You are not yet thirty, Maria?” he asked, with a sigh.
“I am twenty-eight,” she replied softly.
“And I am old now,” he murmured melancholily, pressing her still hand, “I am so old for you. Youth is a beautiful thing.”
“Youth is a magnificent thing,” she replied, raising her voice with flashing eyes.
The incantation was broken. Violently Emilio let go of her hand. Getting up and withdrawing apart he strode through the room two or three times gloomily, almost blindly striking against the furniture. Sadly she looked at him, seeing him a prey to a sudden access of fury, and before this mystery her woman’s heart quailed anxiously.
“Emilio!” she called two or three times without his hearing.
“Maria,” he replied at last, in a kind of growl, without stopping.
“What is the matter?”
“Nothing,” he replied, between his teeth.
Very gradually his violent perambulations amongst the furniture grew calmer. He stopped near a table at a little distance away and sat there. Leaning his elbows on it, he hid his head in his hands, immersed in deep and terrible thoughts. Thus the time passed, while Maria herself seemed wrapped in thought. At last she seemed to make a decision. She rose, crossed the room, and bending over her husband, without touching him, called him again: “Emilio.”
He only started, but said nothing.
“Emilio, my friend, reply,” she said softly and insinuatingly.
“What do you want?” was the gloomy reply.
“I want to know what is disturbing you.”
“Nothing is disturbing me.”
“Why do you lie? You are very troubled; tell me what is the matter?”
“You would laugh at me.”
“I have never laughed at any one,” she replied patiently.
“Who knows?” he said, looking at her in mad anger, and with the open intention of offending her.
She stopped, and grew pale. But her moral energy was too great.
“He who laughs at the sufferings of another is a knave and a fool; you would not consider me perverse or stupid, Emilio?”
“I am not suffering,” he replied gloomily, rising.
“You are mistaken, my friend. You want to deceive me or yourself. You have some ill in your soul; tell me what it is.”
“I have nothing, and I am not suffering,” he replied gloomily.
She shook her head sadly.
“Perhaps I could give you some consolation, Emilio?”
“No.”
“Every human being who has a feeling heart, and soul, can give comfort.”
“No.”
“Am I not your friend, Emilio? Have you no faith in your friend?”
He sneered horribly.
“Friend? friend? You my friend? You, you? I should have faith in you?”
His laughter caused her to shudder.
“How you must be suffering, Emilio, to speak thus,” she said pityingly, pressing her hands to her breast. The man’s heart at such words, and at such a manifestation of pity, melted. He fell again into his seat and a sigh escaped him.
“Oh, how I suffer!”
An immense compassion transfigured the woman. She bent over him and lightly touched his shoulders with her fingers. He trembled and raised his face, and fixed her with eyes so full of immense, measureless sorrow that he seemed to Maria like the living image itself of anguish.
“Tell me why you suffer, Emilio?” she demanded, with such emotion that his spasms seemed to increase.
“I can’t!” he said desperately.
“Whatever it is you can tell me; I can bear it. Speak, speak, Emilio; don’t be afraid of offending me; don’t be afraid of saddening me. Speak,” she said to him affectionately, at the height of her pity.
“I can’t, I can’t,” he said, in cold desperation.
“My friend, don’t be severe with yourself. Don’t be so implacable with your wounded heart; don’t maltreat your wounded soul. Be more humane, more tender, more compassionate with yourself, my friend, or those bleeding wounds will never close, and you will never feel them heal. You will then sigh away all your best blood, Emilio.”
“It is true,” he murmured, as if to himself.
“Friend, conquer your pride and your amour propre. All of us, all of us, no one is excluded, have suffered, are suffering, and will suffer. It is not a shame or a reproach to suffer. Those who hide their pain proudly are not men, are not Christians, and do not feel the human comfort of weeping.”
“That is true,” he murmured.
“Friend, I know the words that caress sorrow, that rock it and finally send it to sleep. Later on, when it awakes in us, it is more tender and weaker; it is a much duller torment.”
Like a suffering child, he looked at her anxiously.
“My friend, why do you suffer?” she asked, leaning over him with a face transfigured with the grandeur of her loving charity, taking his hand and caressing it like that of a sick child in pain. “You oughtn’t to suffer. You have been an upright and just man. Your life has no remorses; it was guided by a moral conscience, tranquil and firm. You have not sinned—that I know; you have caused sorrow to none. Yours is a life without remorse, and so beautiful that suffering ought not to touch it.”
He looked at her ardently, almost drinking in her words like some divine liquor.
“You ought not to suffer. You are no longer alone in life; your friend is near you, near your heart, desiring one thing only, that you may not suffer, that you may no longer feel lonely, that you may possess a soul near you and for you——”
He looked at her passionately, and every one of her words seemed to intoxicate him. She, too, seemed exhilarated with compassion, tenderness, and devotion.
“Emilio, it is your Maria who is here,” she said solemnly.
Then like a madman he took her in his arms, pressed her madly to his breast in a frenzied embrace, and kissed her long, while she, trembling and lost, closed her eyes as before a mortal peril. But immediately, as if the contact of her person had scorched him, as if the lips which had not given him a kiss had scorched him, he pushed Maria brutally aside, crying out at her—
“You cause me horror!”
“Emilio!” she exclaimed, in complete amazement.
“Go away, go away. You cause me horror!” he yelled in her face like a madman.
She drew back, stupefied and terrified.
“You have pardoned me!” she exclaimed.
“It is true, it is true,” he yelled, “but I can’t forget. Go away, go away; I can’t forget.”
So she went, bent, defeated, and broken by the incomparable weight of the truth.