the waters to find some lost treasure at the bottom.
María went across the room and stood in front of a mirror, raising her hands to let down her hair. The black tresses fell on her shoulders, which could not in justice be compared to cold hard marble since they were of the tenderest texture; but there is Parian flesh, though mysticism calls it clay, and the Divine Artificer has used it to form some few human statues which hardly seem to need a soul to give them life and beauty.
“She is lovely!” Leon exclaimed, as he sat sunk in his arm-chair, gazing like a simpleton. “Lovelier every day!”
After making various little arrangements at the glass, María went into her alcove. Leon’s head sank between his hands, and he remained for a long time lost in thought. He was in a fever. At length he rose—angry with himself or with some one else. “I am a fool!” he said. “I wanted a Christian wife and not a hypocritical odalisque.”
CHAPTER XV.
A MODUS VIVENDI.
He sat in silence for some little time; suddenly María gave a loud and terrified cry; he flew to her alcove and found her sitting up in bed, her eyes fixed, her arms extended.
“Leon, oh Leon!” she gasped in alarm, “Are you there—oh, where are you? Ah! Yes—here you are—Hold me—What a hideous dream!”
Leon soon succeeded in soothing her by recalling her to waking reality, the best cure for such vagaries of the fancy.
“I was dreaming—I dreamed I had killed you, and that from the very bottom of a deep, black hole you looked up at me, with oh! such a face—And then you were alive again, but you loved some one else.—I will not have you love any one else....” and she flung her arms round her husband’s neck.
“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
