She paused an instant, overcome by that memory as by a new shame.
"And then to have reached that dawn—to have seen you leaving my house in that way on that horrible morning—Do you remember?"
"I was happy—happy!" cried the young man, in a stifled voice, pale and agitated.
"No, no! Do you remember? You left me as you would have left some light love, some passing fancy, after a few hours of idle pastime."
"You deceive yourself!"
"Confess! Come, speak the truth. Only through truth can we now hope to save ourselves."
"I was happy, I tell you; my whole heart expanded with joy; I dreamed, I hoped, I felt as if I were born anew."
"Yes, yes!—happy to breathe freely, to feel your youth in the breeze and the fresh air. What did you see in her who in her renunciation had so many times suffered keenly—yes, you know it well!—rather than break the vow that she had taken and borne with her in her wanderings over the earth? Tell me! what did you see in me, if you did not believe me a corrupt creature, the heroine of chance amours, the vagabond actress who in her own life, as on the stage, may belong to any man and every man?"
"Foscarina! Foscarina!"