He did not answer.
"Franco! Franco!" she cried, stretching out her clasped hands. Then she started to move forward. He drew back with a rapid movement. Thus they stood in silence, face to face, for half a minute that seemed an eternity.
Franco's lips were pressed tight together, and she could hear his quick breathing. It was he who broke the silence.
"What you have said is exactly what you feel?"
"Yes!"
His hands were clutching the back of a chair. He shook it violently, saying bitterly: "Enough!" Luisa looked at him with inexpressible sadness, and murmured: "Enough?" He answered angrily, "Enough, enough, enough!" After a moment's silence he went on harshly: "I may be indolent, sluggish, selfish, anything you like, but I am not a boy to be soothed by a couple of caresses after all you have said to me. Enough, I tell you!"
"Oh, Franco! I know I have hurt you, but it has cost me so much, having to hurt you! Can't you take me kindly?"
"Ah, take you kindly, indeed! You wish to be free to inflict any wound, and then expect to be taken kindly! You are superior to every one else! You judge, you pass sentence, you alone understand what God wishes and what He does not wish? But this at least I will not have! Say whatever you like about me, but let those things you do not understand alone. You had better be working on your boot!"
He was determined to see only pride in his wife, while his own anger was born almost wholly of pride, of outraged self-esteem; it was an impure anger which darkened his brain and his heart. Both husband and wife would have acknowledged the justice of any other accusation sooner than that of pride.
She silently resumed her seat and tried to resume her work as well, but she handled the tools nervously without really knowing what she was doing. Franco went into the hall, banging the door behind him.