might belong to another.… Let me know that you exist, let me see you sometimes, even though you may have forgotten me, even though you may pass me with indifference, as if you did not know me."
In this outburst her deep love for him rang true—her heroic and inflexible love which would accept all penalties for herself, if only the beloved one might continue to live.
But then, in order that Julio might not feel any false hopes, she added:—
"Live; you must not die; that would be for me another torment.… But live without me. No matter how much we may talk about it, my destiny beside the other one is marked out forever."
"Ah, how you love him!… How you have deceived me!"
In a last desperate attempt at explanation she again repeated what she had said at the beginning of their interview. She loved Julio … and she loved her husband. They were different kinds of love. She could not say which was the stronger, but misfortune was forcing her to choose between the two, and she was accepting the most difficult, the one demanding the greatest sacrifices.
"You are a man, and you will never be able to understand me.… A woman would comprehend me."
It seemed to Julio, as he looked around him, as though the afternoon were undergoing some celestial phenomenon. The garden was still illuminated by the sun, but the green of the trees, the yellow of the ground, the blue of the sky, all appeared to him as dark and shadowy as though a rain of ashes were falling.
"Then … all is over between us?"
His pleading, trembling voice charged with tears made her turn her head to hide her emotion. Then in the painful silence the two despairs formed one and the same question, as if interrogating the shades of the future:
