“As I can. I shall do my best, and shall try to do my duty. Emilio, too, has suffered through my betrayal. In returning to him I must do what I can to make him forget his suffering.”
“I don’t love him, and I can’t love him again. I am exhausted. My heart has lived as much as it can, and it can do no more. But I can, however, have great pity for him, great sweetness, and great friendship to make him forget the torture I have inflicted on him.”
Again, before the force of energy which was exalting her and with which she was struggling, Marco felt a great emotion invade him, a melancholy enthusiasm for the moral martyrdom which she was enduring, and forgot his own immense pain. And anew a lament escaped his lips.
“Ah, pity me, pity me; you are right!” she cried, twisting her hands in agitation, “I am an unfortunate.”
“We are two unfortunates!” he exclaimed, taking her to his arms and kissing her on her hair and eyes.
She repelled him, and drying her tears composed herself.
But he, as he felt the moments of their last meeting flying, and the unsupportable pain of a farewell which was rending his soul, resisted the more.
“Maria, Maria, let us remain together, I implore you.”
“I see myself dying if I leave you, Maria.”
“I love you, Maria. I swear it; I love you.”
“You lie!” she cried, with a voice vibrant with anger and with a heightened complexion.
“I love you, I love you,” he cried more weakly.
“I love you,” he murmured, with lowered eyes.
“Have you understood that you are lying?” she said. “Be silent.”
So all was ended. Even this last rebellion of Marco’s soul evaporated, leaving him cold and dumb. His very torment, given its supreme grief, seemed to quieten into torpor. The large emotions which he had just experienced left him exhausted with a disgust of himself and life. White and done up he lay upon the sofa scarcely noticing the woman at his side. She herself, spent by the long spiritual struggle maintained with herself and him, lay with closed mouth, her beautiful chestnut hair with its deep shining waves had fallen about her neck, and her head had fallen forward listlessly. Each was far away, full of thought and sorrow for the new life so uncertain and doubtful which was presenting itself to their gaze, and each was trying to read the unknown words of their new fate.