“What o’clock is it?” she asked.
“It is late. Go to sleep again; you will have no more nightmares.”
“And you—are you not going to bed?”
“I am not sleepy.”
“Are you going to sit up all night—What is the matter? Are you reading?”
“No, I am thinking.”
“What we were talking about?”
“Of that, and of you.”
“That is right. Think over all the truths I told you and so you will be unconsciously preparing your mind.—Hark! I hear a bell. Is it a fire?”
They listened. They could hear the barking of the dogs, which in the suburbs of Madrid, where every house has a wide and vacant let attached, meet in dozens to unearth kitchen refuse and rummage in the gutters; they could hear the distant creak and jangle of the latest tram-cars, and the faint, steady, metallic ticking of Leon’s watch in his waistcoat pocket—nothing else—much less a bell.
“No,” he said, “and it is not the hour for tolling for prayers.—Go to sleep.”
“I am not sleepy—I cannot sleep,” replied María turning on her pillow. “I feel that I shall see you again at the bottom of the pit, staring at me. You laugh at it—and it is preposterous to dream of seeing a man lying dead who believes and declares that this life is the end of all things.”
“Did I ever say such a thing?” exclaimed Leon with annoyance.
“No—you never said so; but I know that is what you think—I know it.”
“How do you know it? Who told you so?”
“I know it; I know that is what philosophers think at the bottom of their souls, and you are one of them. I do not read your books because I do not understand them; but some one who does understand them has read them.”
Leon rose and turned away, deeply provoked and troubled; he was about to quit the alcove, but suddenly he came back to his wife’s bedside; he took her hand, and said in a stern firm voice:
“María, I am going to say a last word—the last. An idea has just flashed upon my mind which seems to me to promise salvation—which, if we both accept it and act upon it, may yet save us from this hell of misery.”
María, overcome by the pathos and solemnity of his address could say nothing in reply.
“I will explain it in two words.—Happy thought! I cannot think why it never occurred to me before—: I will promise to give up my studies and my evening meetings—the society alike of my books and of my friends. My library shall be walled-up like that of Don Quixote; not a word, not an idea, that can be thought suspicious shall ever be uttered in the house, not a remark that can be regarded as flippant or worldly on matters of religion; there shall be no discussions on history or science—in short, no conversation, no talk whatever....”
“What a comfort! what happiness!” cried María raising herself to kiss her husband’s hands. “And you really and truly promise me this—and will keep your promise?”
“I solemnly swear it. But do not sing your Te Deum too soon; you will understand that I do not propose to make such concessions without requiring some on your part. I have told you my side of the bargain—now for yours. I will sacrifice what you ignorantly call my atheism—though it is an entirely different thing—now you must sacrifice what you call your piety—doubtful piety at the best. If we are to understand each other, you must give up your incessant, interminable devotions, your weekly confession—always to the same priest,—and all the scenic accessories to religion. You may go to Mass on Sundays and Holy Days, and confess once a year, but without previously selecting your confessor.”
“Oh! this is too much!” exclaimed María hiding her face as if in self-pity for the miserable remnant left to her of her religious dissipations.
“Too much!—you think this too much to ask, silly child! Well, I will make a compromise: If you reduce your church-going I will go with you.”
“You will go with me!” she cried starting up in her bed impulsively. “Is it true?—do you mean it?—No, you are mocking me.”
“No indeed, I will go with you, on Sundays.”
“Only on Sundays!”
“Only on Sundays.”
“And you will confess, like me, once a year.”
“Oh! as to that....” Leon murmured.
“You will not?”
“No.—You ask too much at once. I am making an enormous sacrifice, while yours is but a small one. You are giving up superfluous luxuries to enjoy all that is necessary and reasonable; you are snatching off the mask of hypocrisy and bigotry to reveal the true beauty of a Christian wife. This is not a sacrifice. Mine on the other hand is the loss of everything;—in laying my studies and my friendships at your feet, I am cutting off half of my life that you may trample it in the dust.”
“But still it is not enough,” said María passionately. “Of what use is it that you should cease to read if you continue to think—if you still think and always will think the same? You will go with me to church as a mere formality; your body will go in, but your soul will remain outside; and when you see the sacred Host raised in the hands of the priest, a feeling of abominable mockery will laugh within you—unless indeed you are meditating on the insects you can see with your microscope, and which you believe to be the cause of thought and sentiment in our souls, and which I believe to be divine.”
“Your sarcasms cannot touch me,” said her husband. “I know too well the source of these ignorant prejudices. I can only pledge myself to honest and reverent attention.—But I was forgetting another matter. You will have to quit Madrid; we must go to live elsewhere. Now take your choice.”
“You ask too much—it is a shame!” cried María in the voice of a spoilt child. “And what do you offer in return? A sham of religion, a mask of belief to cover your infidel’s face! No, Leon; I cannot agree.”
“Then there is no hope for me,” cried Leon burying his head in his hands. After a few minutes of silent anguish, he coldly looked up at his wife and went on:
“María, then we must live apart. I cannot endure this existence. Within a few days it shall be settled. You can remain in this house or go to your parents, which ever you prefer; I shall go abroad, never to return—never.”
He rose; his wife, after the manner of fashionable wives, burst into tears, seizing his hands and pressing them to her breast.
“We must part?” she sobbed. “But you are mad—cruel....” María’s love for her husband was as great as his for her—a gulf, an absolute divorce of their souls she could bear, but to live apart...!
“My mind is quite made up,” said Leon sadly.
“I agree—I consent to all you propose.”
Long after, when she had been sleeping for some hours, again Leon heard his wife wake with a cry of horror.
“I have been dreaming again—a horrible dream. I was dying and again I saw you—you were caressing and kissing another woman.—But it is daylight; the bells are really ringing now.”
The air was in fact full of the discordant jangle and clang of bells from the towers of the numberless stuccoed and whitewashed structures which, in Madrid, boast of the name of churches, and bear witness to the piety of the natives.
“They are ringing for Matins,” thought María, “I am dying of sleepiness—I must sleep. It is eight o’clock and still they ring, still they call me.—But I cannot go—I have given my word. Heavens! it is nine! Forgive me—spare me,