"Go, then, do! There is the door, I won't keep you, beggar, liar, ingrate! You spit on the hand that raised you from the dirt—well, you shall see! Go, yes go, I beg of you, you could do me no greater pleasure! Go, my sweet dove, my repentant Magdalen,—but you go alone, the child remains with me."
"I shall take the child, do you think I would let you keep him?" said Ragna, "He is mine, you have said it often enough, he goes with me."
"You forget, cara mia, or you are more ignorant than I thought. I acknowledged the child as my own, he is on the State register, 'Egidio, son of Egidio Valentini.' No, no, in the eyes of the State he is not all yours—the State does not know what we know. He is five years old, is he not, the bastard? From five years up, the State gives a child to the father. Mimmo is mine, by the law. A pleasant life he shall have,—my first born, my darling! Do not fear, he shall be brought up to appreciate his mother at her true worth!"
"Oh!" gasped Ragna, "you would not be so wicked."
"You have just given such a flattering opinion of me!"
"Oh, but there are limits to everything!"
"So you will soon find; I know how to keep my own. Be wise, Ragna, realize that you are absolutely powerless. If you want a scandal, beware! It will hurt you, not me; I know the good opinion people have of me, I could put it to public vote. Who are you? You have neither money nor powerful friends nor position, you are dependent on me for the clothes on your back and the bread you eat. You are far too rash. Your conduct is ungrateful and insulting; if I were not the most forbearing man alive I should have thrown you into the street long ago. Think it over, even you must realize the position you put yourself in."
He had the pleasure of seeing her wince, as the iron of his words entered into her soul. Her calm deserted her; his words had a paralysing hypnotic effect, she saw herself stripped and naked in a cold world inimical to her desolate state. Trembling with rage, she felt herself beaten, crushed by the power that circumstances and the law put into her husband's hands, and that he used like a bludgeon. Despairingly she searched her mind for any fact that she could turn to her advantage and found none. She felt herself sinking helplessly in the quicksand.
"I hate you!" she cried with all the intensity of her being. "I hate you! May God deal with you as you have dealt with me!"
"God is not a silly woman,"—he used the insulting word femmina. A smile curled his lips, for her expression of hatred was the cry of the weak creature driven to the wall. She had defied him, she had called him "ludicrous"? Well, he had sworn to punish her, and punish her he would. Fate had placed her at his mercy.