Mary Magdalene (in Verus’ arms)
It is not the same voice, it is not the same soul....
Verus
And yet it is really you whom I hold in my arms, it is every parcel of you whom I have implored so long!... I ask myself still if all is indeed real, if all is indeed possible, if you are not trifling with a too-credulous happiness which you will fling aside among all those which beauty shatters when testing its power.... But no, when I question, when I follow your eyes that plunge into mine, I see that it is indeed true, that it was always true....
Mary Magdalene
Yes, yes, it is true, it is true and it was always true.... I did not know it, I searched my heart in vain and I was ignorant of all my feelings until these days of anguish.... I refused to see that you were coming towards me and that everything was awaiting you.... And yet I ought to have known it.... Already, at Antioch, do you remember, Verus, how I avoided you?... I received so many others; and you alone, the comeliest, the purest, I tried to ignore, to blot out, to destroy.... As soon as you appeared, I withdrew, like a shy and distrustful animal, to my lair; and, only the other day, at our good Silanus’, I felt all the evil, all the cruelty, or all the despair that fills my heart rise to my lips.... But, to-day, I see; I am no longer the same; I no longer know myself, because I am myself once more.... All that used to resist is broken within my soul.... I no longer understand myself and I did not know that happiness is so strange a thing.... I, who never wept in my worst moments of distress, am sobbing to-day when happiness awaits me.... I am glad and light-hearted and yet more shattered than if all the misfortunes that hover in the skies were about to burst over me.... (Embracing him more passionately) Help me, my Verus, help me, support me, you whom nothing threatens, you who have nothing to fear!...
Verus
But what has happened? Can any one have dared, in my absence...?
Mary Magdalene
No, no, nobody; and it is not that; and I myself do not know the danger that surrounds me.... But I have no other shelter than your arms; and I feel myself lost if I lose you too.... Take me, bear me away on that heart to which I am listening, far from myself, far from this place and from my anxiety.... You alone can save me and I have no life but that which you give me.... But why did you forsake me so long in my tears, why did you not come until after the third day, abandoning me thus, without a word of pity, without a sign of hope?...