“Oh! how can you say such abominable things?” cried María, casting up her eyes to Heaven and clasping her hands under her chin.
“It is only the truth; I have no art to conceal the truth. You have made my house a desert cave, cold, empty, and dark ... and I want light, light!”
María was cowed for an instant by his vehemence, then, making great efforts to check her tears, she went on:
“You need not fancy that your violence will wear out my patience. For some time you have taken to talking to me as if I were one of the men you argue with at your club, or debating societies, or whatever you call them. Light, do you say? Light? Then you are at last tired of your blindness? What do I ask better than to show you the light? It is you who are determined that I shall not—that you will remain as you are—blind. You refuse to see! To me it would be the greatest comfort if we could save our souls together; but you will not ... you will rush on to destruction. I, so far as I am concerned, to my dying hour will never cease to say: ‘Leon, Leon, look and see.... And you laugh? But I am hardened against your laughter; God grants me such patience that I can bear to be the victim of your mockery as well as of your scorn and spite. Laugh as much as you please—laugh me to scorn! I do not care; nay, I ask it of you; my one hope, my one desire is to suffer and endure.’”
“Suffer and endure!” exclaimed Leon bitterly. “That is not my desire, to be sure, but it is my lot. God has so ordered it that where I looked for peace and love I find constant war—war to the knife. I hoped to bear a gentle burden, and a hideous log fell on to my shoulders, tiring me, galling and wounding me!”
“And that log am I! Thank you,” cried María spitefully, unable to swallow the worldly mortification which struggled with her less genuine mysticism. “This weary burden is your wife?”
“Yes, it is you. I can only speak plainly. I am bound to be honest.”
“Then cast it off! Rid yourself of this intolerable burthen,” she cried with nervous excitement, her cheeks glowing and her eyes sparkling. “I am a load on your shoulders and you hesitate to throw me off! Kill me, kill me at once!—martyrdom is my vocation!”
Leon looked at her scornfully and said very gravely: