Luna raised her head proudly. Farewell to her look of compassion! Farewell to the melancholy mood in which she had listened to the youth!... Her eyes shone with a steely glance; her voice was cruel and concise.
"Goodnight!"
And she turned her back upon him, beginning to walk as if taking flight. Aguirre hastened after her, soon reaching her side.
"And that's how you leave me!" he exclaimed. "Like this, never to meet again... Can a love that was our very life end in such a manner?..."
The hymn had ceased in the evangelical temple; the Catholic bell was silent; the military music had died out at the other end of the town. A painful silence enveloped the two lovers. To Aguirre it seemed as if the world were deserted, as if the light had died forever, and that in the midst of the chaos and the eternal darkness he and she were the only living creatures.
"At least give me your hand; let me feel it in mine for the last time.... Don't you care to?"
She seemed to hesitate, but finally extended her right hand. How lifeless it was! How icy!
"Good-bye, Luis," she said curtly, turning her eyes away so as not to see him.
She spoke more, however. She felt that impulse of giving consolation which animates all women at times of great grief. He must not despair. Life held sweet hopes in store for him. He was going to see the world; he was still young....
Aguirre spoke from between clenched teeth, to himself, as if he had gone mad. Young! As if grief paid attention to ages! A week before he had been thirty years old; now he felt as old as the world.