"I have had it made up in the Józsefváros dispensary." And with that she drew out the flask from her pocket and showed it me.
"That will do for me. I will now go with this prescription to all the ten apothecaries in the town and have it made up by every one of them. Ten times the strength will certainly do for him."
Horrified, I seized her hand.
"Miserable woman, what wouldst thou do? Surely not commit murder? Wouldst thou poison thy husband's body and my soul? Every time I have thought of thee I have seen thee before me in the idealized form of my pure love of early days, and wilt thou now put horror and aversion in the place of it? Give me that prescription!"
With terrified, staring eyes, and trembling in every nerve, the woman fell down on her knees before me, and when I said to her: "Hitherto thou hast always had a place in my prayers, dost thou wish me to cast thee forth from my remembrance with curses?" she began to smile.
"'Tis the first time in your life that you have 'thou'd' me. Let me then return the compliment. But no, I cannot thou thee. The word thou cannot come out of my mouth. Don't lift me up. Let me kneel before you. I fain would only weep, but no tears will flow. Here is the prescription. Destroy it if you like. I was mad. I knew not what I said. 'Tis true. If life be grievous to me, 'tis I who ought to die."
"What you now say is also a sin. Heaven does not give us that divine spark, the spirit, only that we may fling it back again. Learn to bear your sorrows in silence. Every one of us has his cross which God has laid upon him that he may carry it ... If you would believe in the saints, follow their example. Be a martyr, if God so wills it—that is the real Catholic faith...."
She began to sob, but after some little difficulty I contrived to pacify her. I also provided her with all sorts of good homely counsels. "A good wife," I said, "ought to humour her husband, and not sit in judgment on his faults." I told her to bring him to me and introduce me to him. Perhaps I might make some impression on him, and prevail upon him not to press his crotchets too far. It was even possible that I might find him some work to do, something relating to spiritual subjects which might occupy his mind, kindle his ambition, and make him peel off his cynical husk. No doubt he was a good and worthy man, who only needed to be properly taken in hand to get on very well.
The lady with the eyes like the sea listened with many shakes of the head, but she had gradually grown much more quiet. Those eyes of hers, how they could express gratitude! It really seemed as if, beneath the influence of my words, her face was recovering the rosy hue that it had lost.
Alas, no! Vain thought! 'Twas not my words, but something else.