He spoke with a desperate sadness in his eyes and face, in every expression and gesture.
“Is it true, that I am dear to you, Maria?”
“It is true, as you say, you are dear to me,” she replied desolately.
Marco drew her to himself and kissed her on the lips chastely. She returned the kiss. But to both the kiss seemed to have the savour of death.
“Let us live together till death,” he resumed sadly.
“Together, Marco, together? To reunite when we no longer have love as the excuse of our betrayal, nor passion as an excuse for the sorrow we are inflicting on others! Why? Why?”
“Because nothing else remains,” he said desolately.
“Is there really nothing else, Marco?” she cried, wringing her hands.
“And that unfortunate at Rome? That unfortunate Emilio? What has he done to be so disgraced? And why must I bring about his misfortune?” she cried, with a sob, hiding her face in her hands.
“Pity him; let us pity him,” said Marco; “he is an unfortunate.”
“He will be right to curse you, but he will also be wrong. All are right and all are wrong confronted with love, Maria.”
“And Vittoria? Vittoria? the unlucky Vittoria? What will become of her? What will she say of me? Marco, think, think, what a horrible business!”
“She will curse us justly,” resumed Marco, with deep sadness; “she will be right, like Emilio, to curse us, but confronted with love she will be wrong.”
“I have tried to console her, but she despised my consolations. Like all exigent people who ask too much from life, Vittoria has only gathered delusion and bitterness.”
“I offered her everything, and she repulsed it. What she demanded was not in my power, will never be in my power, and I shall never see her again.”
“Religion will be able to do much for her. She will forget me.”
“But Emilio and Vittoria were not expecting this from us and from existence.”
“The fault isn’t mine, and isn’t ours. If we are to blame we did it for one supreme and invincible reason, which is love.”
“My God! my God!” she kept on lamenting, sobbing without tears.
“There is nothing else for us to do, but to live together till death.”
“Nothing else? Nothing else? Suppose we were to try again? Suppose we were to return?”
The voice was as desperate as the proposal.
“Why do you want to try again, Maria?” he asked, with infinite desolation; “do you wish to go to your husband who hates and loves you? Do you wish to give yourself to him who is horrified at what you did? Do you wish instead to stop in your home as a stranger and an enemy? Do you wish to live and give yourself to him, as a courtesan whom he pays and despises? Do you wish to live, if you refuse yourself to him, in an inferno? To-morrow he will hate you, and you will be forced either to fly again ridiculously or become the lover of Gianni Provana, and afterwards of another Gianni Provana, descending to every abyss to make something of your life.”