“No, no!” she cried, at the height of moral nausea.
“How can I try again with Vittoria? Must I return and fall at the feet of my wife, simulating a passion I do not feel? Must I play a comedy, I who despise a lie? Could I ever take my wife in my arms like you? Oh, she knows, perhaps, and understands; at any rate she would soon understand, that I was lying and deceiving her. Do you know that I inspire her with repulsion? Do you know that she neither wants me as a husband, a companion, or a friend? Do you know that she wants me as a lover? Can I be the lover of Vittoria, Maria? I can’t, there, I can’t! If I returned to Rome, if I re-entered Piazzo Fiore, I should only make Vittoria more unhappy. In desperation I should hurl myself into conviviality. You can’t wish the death of your dignity, nor I that of my honour.”
“It is true, it is true!” she exclaimed, falling back in the seat as if about to faint.
“Courage, courage, Maria,” he said sweetly.
A great silence, a great shadow, an ineffable solitude was around them in that funereal wood.
“But couldn’t we go on as we did up to yesterday, each in our own way?” she asked in a weak voice.
“Where, where, Maria?” he asked, with the shadow of a melancholy smile.
“I don’t know ... anywhere ... everywhere,” she said vaguely, “each our own way, as up to yesterday.”
“Let us separate to-day and resume our way.”
“We should meet to-morrow.” And his voice was very sweet and sad.
“Do you think so, Marco? Do you think so?”
“It is fate. Maria, it was fate our meeting yesterday; our fate would be meeting to-morrow. A will which we are ignorant of, which is outside us, which acts on us while it is foreign to us, has reunited us yesterday, and would reunite us to-morrow. Let us accept it, Maria.”
“But what is this will, Marco?” she said, seized by a sudden fear.
“Maria,” he said gravely, “you know, you have known, that passion is outside the usual limits of life, you have known and seen that it forces souls and persons beyond all laws and duties, beyond all vows. You have seen and known that it exalts and multiplies life. Well, Maria, I believe that when once the ordinary limits of life have been passed over, it is extremely difficult to turn back. I believe that when duties are forgotten, vows unloosed, laws broken, it is extremely difficult for people to re-enter the social orbit, to resume their proper place, and to repair their conscience. I believe that for a life which has touched the heights of passion, it is impossible to descend to the great, cold, silent depths.”