“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.
“Perhaps I could give you some consolation, Emilio?”
“Every human being who has a feeling heart, and soul, can give comfort.”
“Am I not your friend, Emilio? Have you no faith in your friend?”
“Friend? friend? You my friend? You, you? I should have faith in you?”
“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.
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.
“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.”
“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.
