“He wanted to die.”
“Ah, yes! He wanted to die.”
“I did my level best to prevent him from wearing himself out.”
“Ah, yes, to prevent him.”
“What else could I have done?” flashed Kate in anger.
“If you could have given him your life, he would not even have wanted to die.”
“I did give him my life. I loved him—oh, you will never know.—But he didn’t want my soul. He believed I should keep a soul of my own.”
“Ah, yes, men are like that, when they are merely men. When a man is warm and brave—then he wants the woman to give him her soul, and he keeps it in his womb, so he is more than a mere man, a single man. I know it. I know where my soul is. It is in Ramón’s womb, the womb of a man, just as his seed is in my womb, the womb of a woman. He is a man, and a column of blood. I am a woman, and a valley of blood. I shall not contradict him. How can I? My soul is inside him, and I am far from contradicting him when he is trying with all his might to do something that he knows about. He won’t die, and they won’t kill him. No! The stream flows into him from the heart of the world: and from me.—I tell you, because you saved his life, and therefore we belong to the same thing, you and I and he—and Cipriano. But you should not misjudge me. That other way of women, where a woman keeps her own soul—ah, what is it but weariness!”
“And the men?”
“Ah! if there are men whose souls are warm and brave, how they comfort one’s womb, Caterina!”