“I have left. After having commented bitterly and brutally on my departure, somebody let me go free and alone without asking my itinerary, without asking me when I was returning. It is true he was tormented by my flight, but relieved that I had left alone. He was tortured, I believe, by the idea of not seeing me, of not being able to injure me, of not being able to throw my past in my face, but in fact content that I was far away.”
“And you, Maria?”
“I?” she exclaimed harshly; “I? Probably I shall never return again. Why should I return? I have nothing to do there for the good of any one. I can only do evil there to others and myself. Certainly, Marco, I shall never return—never.”
“Emilio will summon you; he will want you,” he said, with agitation.
“No,” she declared harshly, “he has driven me out.”
“Driven you out, Maria?”
“Not once, but many times, in moments of violence and coldness he said it would have been better if I had never returned. Certainly, certainly, Marco, I shall never return there. I shall go and live alone in a remote corner of the earth, and I shall die there.”
She spoke with vehemence and harshness, but still subduedly; he, too, spoke to her in the same subdued way. Their faces were pale and strained. An immense silence reigned in the deserted summer town and the equally deserted huge hotel. The flames flickered in the grate and the logs crackled.
“Are you so unhappy, Maria?” he said, taking her hand tenderly.
“So unhappy, really so unhappy. I dare not kill myself; and why should I? I should be ridiculous and grotesque. I am ashamed to kill myself. I have nothing to do with my life, really nothing.”