But María had not listened to her spiteful sketch of the Marquis de Fúcar. She heard nothing but the tumult in her own soul, the storm of a rebellion, of a revolution, like the stormy rousing of a sleeping crowd. The serpent that lay brooding in her heart suddenly brought forth a swarm of others that started into life, alert and vicious, gnawing, and vomiting fire. Her jealousy took the form of a legion of invisible reptiles, stinging and scorching her on every side; this was in fact the guise under which it presented itself to her imagination, which always conceived of mental experiences as analogous to physical sensations; to her a pleasure was actually a caress, and a pain a blow or a pinch or a stab. The poor saint and martyr had never in her life before felt anything like this, and she did not know what it meant. Her grief was compounded with terror and surprise, and the shock was so great that she forgot to turn to God, as might have seemed natural, or to pray for patience or resignation.
What was this? It was the Real suppressing the Artificial; the woman’s heart asserting its supremacy through the agency of a revolt of its imprisoned, but genuine, emotions. It was an entire revolution of woman’s nature claiming its rights, and throwing off all that was false and assumed to raise the triumphant standard of truth and of that nobler part which—whether she be lover, wife, or mother, good or bad—makes her a true woman; makes her the other half of man—the Eve to Adam—whether faithful or faithless, a heroine or a baggage. This revolution is sometimes occasioned by the passion of love; but not invariably, because love in its innocent simplicity yields to the sophistries and treacherous blandishments of its brother mysticism. What never fails to stir it up is the brutal and overwhelming passion of jealousy, so well painted by Calderon as the hydra whose double nature, diabolical and seraphical, betrays its birth as the hybrid offspring of Love, which is divine, and Envy, the daughter of all the devils. The sudden frenzy that had sprung up in María’s soul was more akin to its mother Envy than to its father Love. It was an instrument of torture and torment, a rack without respite, a fire that grew fiercer each instant. Her bigotry was suddenly shattered like a tower that has been undermined and blown to the winds. At that moment her soul was dark; God utterly eclipsed. With a cry of anguish and clasping her head in her hands she exclaimed: “Wretch! But you shall pay dearly for it!”
Just at this juncture her mother entered the room and perceiving that María had learnt all, she threw herself into her arms. María had no tears; her eyes were dry and sparkling. The marquesa puckered her face up to shed a tear she had ready, as we are prepared with sighs as we enter the house of death.
“Do not suppress your grief, my darling child. I see you know the worst. I would not have told you for fear of agitating your tender soul ... be calm. Pilar has told you? It is horrible, atrocious! but perhaps not irremediable.... For days I have been miserable; but be calm; let me see you resigned.”
Pilar thought it was her turn to speak again.
“The atrocity,” she said, “is all the greater under the circumstances. It is a villainous thing to betray any woman, but a saint like you.... What is society coming to? In its passion for abolishing it will at last abolish the soul! Oh! c’est dégoutant! and then the wretches wonder that a handful of brave men stand forth, determined that God shall not be pensioned off. They are furious because a standard is raised to rally those who are ready to do battle for Religion, the Mother of Duty. If they are conquered through treachery, which nowadays triumphs everywhere, they will return to the charge ... they will return again and again, till at last....”
As she spoke she had risen, and was now standing in front of a mirror that formed the door of a wardrobe and contemplating her interesting person, twisting from side to side to study the fall of her elegant mantle and the effect of her fashionable hat. Her dainty, ungloved hands arranged here a pleat and there a curl; and then she returned to her seat.
“Did you hear that he is living there?” said the marquesa to her daughter and softening the words with a kiss.
“With her?” cried María drawing aside from her mother’s embrace. “Where?”
“At Carabanchel. Leon was so reckless as to take a lodging close to Suertebella. There is a way through the park.”