Then she would turn towards him, laying her hot hand upon his arm.
"Tell me that it was not my fault. Tell me—tell me!"
"It was not. It was not."
"But I want her so. I want to feel her. I want to feel her soft and warm in my arms. Oh, my baby!"
And so the summer nights would wear away.
But as time went on a reactionary lethargy pervaded her. Her vitality being spent, she was left limp and devoid of energy. For hours she would lie motionless in the heated room, the afternoon sun, intensified by the reflected glare of pressed brick, streaming upon her, and she would appear to be indifferent to both heat and glare. From Algarcife she turned with an avoidance which was almost instinctive. When he touched her she shrank into silence, when he spoke she met his words with lethargic calm. It was as if the demands he made upon her emotional nature became irksome to her when that nature lay dormant.
"I suppose I love you," she said one day, in answer to his questions. "I think I do, but I don't feel it. I don't feel anything. I only want to forget."
"Not to forget me, Mariana?"
Mariana shook her head impatiently.
"Do you know," she continued, "that the thought of feeling makes me positively sick? I haven't any left, and I don't like it in other people. I am tired of it all."