La Malquerida/Act 3

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Juliana. Raimunda!

Raimunda. What do you want? Is he worse?

Juliana. No, don't be nervous.

Raimunda. How is he? Why did you leave him?

Juliana. He's asleep. Acacia is with him; she can hear if he calls. You are the one I am worried about. Thank God, he's not dead. Do you expect to go all day without eating?

Raimunda. Let me alone; don't bother me.

Juliana. What are you doing out here? Come on in and sit with us.

Raimunda. I was looking for Bernabé.

Juliana. He can't be back so soon if he brings the men to take Norbert away. If the constables come with him.…

Raimunda. Constables? Constables in this house? Ah, Juliana, surely a curse has fallen upon us all!

Juliana. Come on in, and don't be looking out of the door all the time. It's not Bernabé that you are looking for; it's the other one—it's your husband. When all is said and done, he is your husband.

Raimunda. Yes, the habits of a lifetime cannot be changed in one day. Although I know what I know, and that it must always be so, although if I saw him coming it would be to curse him, although I must loathe him for the rest of my life, yet here I stand looking out of the door and scan​ning every rock and cranny upon those mountains only for a sight of him! It seems to me as if I were waiting for him as I used to do, to see him come happy and smiling, and then turn and walk into the house with him arm in arm like two lovers, and sit down here at the table to eat, and go over everything that we had done during the day. Sometimes we would laugh, sometimes we would argue, but always it was so dear, as if we had been fonder of each other than any one else who had ever lived in the world. Now it is all over; nothing remains. The peace of God has fled forever from this house!

Juliana. You cannot believe what you see with your eyes. If you hadn't told me yourself, if I didn't know how you felt, how you were, I would never have believed it. Faustino is dead, God help him; we can leave it. There might be more of the sort, too, for all I care; but this devil that has gotten into him with Acacia, it doesn't seem possible, I can't believe it—although I must believe it. There is no other explanation of the mystery.

Raimunda. Did you never notice anything?

Juliana. Nothing. When he first came to the house, it was to make love to you, and I needn't tell you how I felt. I was fond of your first husband; there never was a better nor juster man in the world, so I looked on him with disfavor. God have mercy on me, but if I had seen anything, what reason would I have had for keeping quiet? Of course, when you come to think, he gave her presents—and there were a good many of them, too—but we never thought anything of that. She was so haughty with him. They never had one good talk together from the day you were married. She was only a runt then anyway. She insulted him out of pure spite. Nobody could do anything with her. If you struck her, it made no difference. I'll say this while I am ​about it: if she had been nice to him when she was little, he might have looked on her as his own daughter. Then we would never have been where we are now.

Raimunda. Are you trying to excuse him?

Juliana. Excuse him? There can be no excuse for such a thing. It was enough that she was your daughter. What I say is that the girl was like a stranger to him from the beginning, although she was your own child. If she had treated him like a father, as she ought—it would have been different; he isn't a bad man. A bad man is bad through and through. When you were first married, I've seen him sit by himself and cry at the way the girl ran from him, as if he had had the plague.

Raimunda. You are right. The only trouble we ever had was with the child.

Juliana. After she was grown there wasn't a girl in the village that was her equal for looks. Nobody knows that better than you do. But she shrank from him as if he had been the devil. There she was all the time—right before his eyes! No wonder if he had an evil thought; none of us are above them.

Raimunda. I don't say he might not have had an evil thought, although he ought never to have had such a thought. But you put an evil thought out of your mind unless you are evil. He must have had more than an evil thought to do what he did, to murder a man in cold blood to prevent my daughter from marrying and going away—away from him; his mind must have been evil, like the criminal's, waiting to break out, with all the evil of the world in his heart. I am more anxious than anybody to believe that it is not so bad, but the more I think, the more I see that there can be no excuse for it. When I remember what has been hanging over my daughter all these years, that any moment—be​cause a man who will do murder will do anything. If he had ever laid hands on her I would have killed them both, as sure as my name is Raimunda—him, because he had been guilty of such a crime, and her because she did not let him kill her before she would consent to it.

Juliana. Here comes Bernabé.

Raimunda. Are you alone?

Bernabé. Yes, they are deciding in the village what is best to be done. I was afraid to stay any longer.

Raimunda. You were right. This is not life. What do they say now?

Bernabé. Do you want to go mad? Forget it. Pay no attention to what they say.

Raimunda. Are they coming to take Norbert away?

Bernabé. His father will tend to that. The doctor won't let them put him in the cart for fear it will make him worse. He'll have to be carried on a stretcher. The judge and the prosecutor are coming to take his story, so they don't want a relapse. He was unconscious yesterday and couldn't testify. Everybody has his own idea; no two agree. Not a soul went to the fields to-day. The men stand around the streets in groups; the women talk in the houses and run to and fro. Nobody stops to eat. Not a meal has been served to-day, dinner or supper either, on the hour.

Raimunda. Didn't you tell them that Norbert's wounds aren't serious?

Bernabé. What difference does that make? Now they can't do anything. Yesterday, when they thought Tío Eusebio's boys had fallen on him with the master, and he was going to die, the thing was simple; but to-day they hear he is better. How do they know but that he will soon be ​well again? Even Norbert's best friends say that it's a great pity that the wound wasn't serious. If he was wounded at all, it might better have been serious. Then Tío Eusebio's boys could have been made to pay for it, and they would have had their revenge, but now, if he gets well, the law will get into it, and then nobody will be satisfied.

Juliana. They are so fond of Norbert, are they, that they wish he was dead? The idiots!

Bernabé. That is the way they are. I told them they could thank you for it, because you were the one who called the master, and the master threw himself between them and knocked up their guns, so they couldn't kill him.

Raimunda. Did you tell them that?

Bernabé. Every mother's son that asked me. I said the first because it was true, and I said the rest—because you don't know what they are saying in the village, nor how they feel about what is going on in this house.

Raimunda. No! I don't want to hear! Where is the master? Have you seen him? Do you know where he is?

Bernabé. He and Rubio were up at Los Berrocales this morning with the goatherds from Encinar. They spent the night in a hut on the uplands. I don't like this going away. It's not right, if I know what is good for him. It looks as if he was afraid. This is no time to have people think what isn't so. Norbert's father talks too much. This morning he tried to persuade Tío Eusebio that his sons had had no cause to shoot his boy.

Raimunda. Is Tío Eusebio in the village?

Bernabé. He came with his boys. They arrested them this morning, tied them together by the elbows, and brought them over from Encinar. Their father followed on foot and brought the little fellow with him, holding his hand all the way. They cried with every step that they took. There ​wasn't a man in the village but cried, too, when he saw them, even the strongest, no matter if he had never cried before.

Raimunda. And his mother is alone at home, and here I am! What do you men know?

Acacia. Mother——

Raimunda. Well? What is it?

Acacia. Norbert wants you. He is awake now. He wants some water. He is thirsty; I was afraid to give him any for fear it wasn't right.

Raimunda. The doctor says he can have all the orange-juice he can drink. Here's the jar. Does he suffer much?

Acacia. No, not now.

Raimunda. [To Bernabé] Did you get the things for the doctor?

Bernabé. Yes, they're in the saddle-bags. I'll bring them in. [Goes out.

Acacia. He is calling, mother. Do you hear?

Raimunda. Coming, Norbert, my boy. [Goes out.

Acacia. Has that man come back?

Juliana. No. He took his gun and rushed out like one mad as soon as it was over. Rubio ran after him.

Acacia. Have they caught him?

Juliana. You'll hear soon enough when they do. They'll have to bring charges against him first.

Acacia. But doesn't everybody know? They heard what my mother said.

Juliana. No, nobody heard except me and Bernabé, and he won't tell what isn't good for him; he is honest and loyal to this house. They heard your mother shout, that was all. They thought it was because Norbert was here, and Tío Eusebio's boys were waiting outside to kill him. Nobody ​will say a word when the judge comes unless your mother tells us to open our mouths.

Acacia. Do you mean that my mother isn't going to let you tell the truth? Won't she tell what she knows?

Juliana. Is that what you want? So you want to disgrace this house, do you, and yourself? Then every man will think what he likes; some will believe that you are innocent, and some will never believe it. A woman's honor is not a thing to be bandied about in men's mouths, not when it is none of their business.

Acacia. My honor? I can take care of my honor. Let the others do the same. Now I shan't marry. I am glad it happened, because I shall never marry. I only agreed to it to get rid of him.

Juliana. Acacia, I don't want to hear you—not another word. Surely the devil must be in you!

Acacia. Yes, he is, and he has always been, since I first learned to hate that man!

Juliana. Yes, and who is to say that wasn't where the trouble began? You had no cause to hate him. Mind you, nobody blamed your mother more than I did when she married again; but all the same, I saw what a devil you were to this man when you were a little child, and how much it meant to him—which you were too young to know.

Acacia. How much did it mean to me to see my mother always hanging around his neck? Do you suppose I liked it, sitting here and seeing her love him? I was always in the way.

Juliana. You have no right to talk like that. You were always first with your mother, and you might have been with him.

Acacia. Might have been? Never! Because I was, and I am.

​Juliana. But not like you mean, though you seem proud of it; in the way you should have been. He never would have loved you as he did if you had loved him as a daughter.

Acacia. How could I love him? Didn't he turn me even against my own mother?

Juliana. What do you mean? Turn you against your own mother?

Acacia. Yes. Do you suppose I can love her now as I ought, as I should have loved her if that man had never entered this house? I remember once when I was a little girl, I spent all one night with a knife under my pillow, and I lay awake all night. The only thought that I had in my mind that night was to kill him.

Juliana. Jesús, my child! What is that? Suppose you had? Suppose you had gotten up, and had dared, and had killed him?

Acacia. I don't know who I might have killed next.

Juliana. Holy Virgin! Jesús! Not another word. Don't you talk! You are beyond the pale of God's mercy. Do you know what I think? It was all your fault.

Acacia. All my fault?

Juliana. Yes, yours! It was your fault! And I'll go further: if you hated him as much as you say you do, then he would have been the only one you would have hated—yes, the only one! Jesús! It's a good thing that your mother doesn't know!

Acacia. Know what?

Juliana. That he wasn't the one you were jealous of. It was her! You were in love with him and you didn't know it.

Acacia. In love with him?

Juliana. Yes, hate turned to love. Nobody can hate like that. A hate like that always grows out of a great love.

​Acacia. Do you mean to say that I was in love with that man? Do you know what you are telling me?

Juliana. I am not telling you anything.

Acacia. No. What you will do now is run and tell my mother.

Juliana. Is that what you are afraid of? I thought so. Now you are the one who is telling. You needn't worry, though. I'll not tell. She has enough on her mind, poor soul. God help us!

Bernabé. Here comes the master!

Juliana. Did you see him?

Bernabé. Yes. You wouldn't know him. He looks as if he had stepped from the grave.

Acacia. Let me out!

Juliana. Yes, let us all out—and shut your mouth, do you hear? What is done is done. Your mother must never know. [The women go out.

Bernabé. Can—can I do anything?

Esteban. Nothing, Bernabé.

Bernabé. I'll tell the mistress.

Esteban. No, don't tell her; they'll find us.

Rubio. How about his wounds, eh?

Bernabé. Better. The doctor sent for these things. I'll take them in—unless you need me. [Goes out.

Esteban. Here I am. What do you want me to do?

Rubio. What do I want you to do? This is your house; you belong here. A man's house is his castle. Running away, being afraid to face it, is to confess. It will ruin us both.

Esteban. Here I am; you have had your way. Now this woman will come and accuse me and raise the house. ​The judge will be here, and he will bring Tío Eusebio. What then?

Rubio. Why didn't you let Tío Eusebio's boys handle it themselves? They would have finished it. Now he is only wounded. He will squeal, and so will his father; so will all the women. They are the ones I am afraid of. They will talk. Nobody can prove who shot Faustino. You were with his father; nobody saw me. I have a good pair of legs. I was with some friends two leagues away a few minutes before, and I set the clock ahead. When I left the house I took good care to have them notice it.

Esteban. Yes, we would have been safe if that had been all. But you talked; you gave yourself away.

Rubio. You ought to have killed me. That was the first time in my life that I ever was afraid. I never expected they would let Norbert go. I told you that we ought to go into court and have Acacia testify that Norbert had sworn he was going to kill Faustino, but you wouldn't listen. Do you mean to tell me that you couldn't have made her do it? We could have got others, too, to say the same. Then it would have been easy; they would never have let him go. I know I made a fool of myself, but when I saw that Norbert was free, that the law—yes, and Tío Eusebio—would never stop there, that they would look somewhere else, then I was afraid for the first time. I wanted to forget. So I began to drink, which I never do, and I talked. You ought to have killed me then; you had ground for it. They were talking already in the village; that was what scared me. When I heard that song—it put the blame here. Norbert and his father suspect. After what happened before, they have their eyes open. That is the talk that has got to be stopped, no matter what comes of it. That is the danger—the crime will be known by the cause. Nothing else counts. ​So long as nobody knows why he was killed, nobody will ever find out who killed him either.

Esteban. But why? Why was he killed? What was the use of killing anybody?

Rubio. I don't know. Don't ask me. Weren't you talking all the time? "If another man gets her, look out! Something happens." Then you told me she was going to be married. "I can't scare this one off; it's all over, he will take her away. I can't think.…" Didn't you come to me in the morning early again and again, before it was light, and wake me up and say: "Get up, Rubio; I haven't closed my eyes all night. I must get out. To the fields! I must walk!" And then we'd take our guns and go out and walk for hours, side by side, without speaking a word. At last, when the fit had passed, and we'd put a few shots in the air so that nobody could say that we did no hunting when we went out to hunt, I'd tell you that we scared away the game; but you said we frightened evil thoughts: and down we'd sit on some hummock and then you would burst out laughing like one mad, as if some weight had been lifted from your soul, and you'd catch me around the neck and talk, and talk, and talk—you didn't know how you talked, nor what you said, nor why, nor whether it had any sense at all; but it always came to the same tiling: "I am mad, crazy, a wild man! I cannot live like this. I want to die. I don't know what devil has gotten into me. This is torment, hell!" And then you'd shuffle the words again, over and over, but it was always the same, you were dying—death! And you talked death so long that one day death heard—and he came. And you know it.

Esteban. Stop! Why do you have to talk?

Rubio. Take care, master! Don't you touch me! I know what was in your mind when we were coming down ​the mountain. Make no mistake. You lagged behind. Another minute and your gun would have been at your shoulder. But don't you do it, master, don't you try! We'll stick together. I know how you feel; you're sick. You never want to see me again. If that would help, I'd get out. What did I care, anyway? It was nothing to me. Whatever I got you gave me afterward. It was your idea. I never asked. I don't need money. I don't drink, I don't smoke. All I want is to rove over the mountains, to do what I like, to be free. I want to be my own master. You trusted me, and I was proud of it. I know how you feel. We are like brothers. I'll take the blame. You needn't worry. They can grind me to powder but I'll never say a word. I'll tell them I did it—it was I—because—it's none of their business—just because. I don't care what they give me: they can make it ten years, fifteen. What's the difference? Then you fix it; you have influence. Only don't let them make it too much. Get busy; cut it down. Others have done the same. In four or five years everything will have blown over. Only I don't want you to forget. When I come out we will be brothers, the same as before. We can work together; we can do what we please. Only I mean to be my own master, to have power, to feel power in my hands! Nobody can stand alone. We'll be brothers. Hush! Some one is coming—the mistress!

Rubio. Señora!

Raimunda. Get out of my house! Don't you come near me! What are you doing here? I never want to see you again.

​Rubio. Oh! You are going to see me again—and hear me.

Raimunda. What do you mean? This is my house.

Rubio. Just a word. Soon we will all be in court. We had better fix it beforehand. Because a few fools open their mouths is no reason why a good man should go to prison.

Raimunda. More than one will go. You don't expect to get out of it?

Rubio. I don't know. Only one will go, but that one will be I.

Raimunda. It will?

Rubio. But when I shut my mouth I don't want other people to talk. Take it from me: what you think is not so. Norbert and his father are back of these lies; they are the ones who do all the lying. They made up that song, too. It's a lie, and they know it.

Raimunda. Is that so? You have agreed then on your story? Well, I don't believe one word of it. Gossip and songs are nothing to me. I believe nothing but the truth, the truth that I know—and I know it so well that I have known it all along. I guessed it from the beginning. I might have thought—but no, I never thought anything of you. He, he might have confessed; it would have been only fair. He might have known that I would hold my tongue, not for him, but for this house—which was my father's house—for my daughter, for my own sake. But why should I keep still when everybody knows it, and the very stones shout? They sing it from the housetops.

Rubio. So long as you keep still, the rest can sing all they want to.

Raimunda. Keep still? To save you? I could scream at the very sight of you! I could raise the village!

Rubio. Don't be a fool! What's the use?

​Raimunda. Of course you weren't a fool when you murdered a man. And you nearly murdered another—in this house—or had him murdered.

Rubio. I wouldn't have been a fool if I had.

Raimunda. You are a coward! You are a murderer!

Rubio. Your wife is speaking to you, master.

Esteban. Rubio!

Rubio. You see he can hear.

Raimunda. Yes, hang your head before this man. What a humiliation! You are his slave for the rest of your life. Could any fate be more horrible? Now this house has a master. Thank God, he cannot be less jealous of its honor than you!

Esteban. Raimunda!

Raimunda. When I talk, you interrupt. You are not afraid of me.

Esteban. If I had been man enough, I would have put a bullet through my head, and have been done with it.

Rubio. Oh, master!

Esteban. No! Stop there! That's all I'll take from you. Get out! What are you waiting for? Do you want me to beg you on my knees?

Raimunda. Oh!

Rubio. No, master. I am going. [To Raimunda] If it hadn't been for me, there wouldn't have been any murder, but you might have lost a child. Now, you have another. The blood made him faint; a bad turn, that was all. But he's better. I am a good doctor. Some time you can thank me for it. Don't forget. I'll show you how. [Goes out.

Esteban. Don't cry any more. I can't bear to see you cry. I am not worth all these tears. I ought never to have come back; I ought to have starved amid the brambles and thickets—they should have hunted me down like a wolf. ​I would not have raised my hand. Don't reproach me! Over and over again I have said to myself more than you can say. I have called myself murderer, assassin, times without number. Let me go. This is no longer my home. Turn me out! I am only waiting for them to take me. I don't go out on the road and give myself up, because I am too weak; my heart sinks; I am at the end of my tether. If you don't want me, tell me to go, and I will creep onto the highway and throw myself down in the fields, like carrion which you cast from your door.

Raimunda. Yes, give yourself up! Bring shame and ruin on this house, drag my daughter's honor in the dust and mire of the village! I should have been the law to you; you ought to have thought of me. Do you suppose that I believe in these tears because this is the first time I ever saw you cry? Better you had cried your eyes out the day that wicked thought first entered your mind, rather than have turned them where you had no right. Now you cry—but what am I to do? Look at me. Nobody knows what I have been through. It could not be worse. I want to forget, but I must think—think how I can hide the shame which has fallen on this house, keep it out of men's sight, prevent a man from being dragged from this house to prison—a man I brought into it to be a father to my child! This was my father's house; here my brothers lived with the fear of God in their hearts, and from it they went to serve their King, or to marry, or to till other fields by their labor. When they re-entered these doors it was with the same honor with which they went forth. Don't cry; don't hang your head. Hold it high, as I do. In a few minutes the officers will be here to trap us all. Though the house burn, and they are in it, they shall not smell the smoke. Dry your eyes; you have wept blood. Take a sip of water—I wish it was poison. ​Don't drink so fast; you are overheated. The thorns have torn your skin. You deserved knives. Let me wash you off; it makes my blood creep to look at you.

Esteban. Raimunda! Wife! Pity me! You don't know. Don't talk to me. No, I am the one who must talk—I must confess as I shall confess at the hour of my doom! You don't know how I have struggled. I have wrestled all these years as with another man who was stronger than I, night and day, who was dragging me where I did not want to go.

Raimunda. But when—when did that evil thought first enter your mind? When was that unhappy hour?

Esteban. I don't know. It came upon me like a blight, all at once; it was there. All of us think some evil in our lives, but the thought passes away, it does no harm; it is gone. When I was a boy, one day my father beat me. Quick as a flash it came to me: "I wish he was dead!" But no sooner thought, than I was ashamed—I was ashamed to think that I had ever had such a thought. My heart stood still within me for fear that God had heard, that he would take him away. From that day I loved him more, and when he died, years afterward, I grieved as much for that thought as I did for his death, although I was a grown man. And this might have been the same; but this did not go away. It became more fixed the more I struggled to shake it off. You can't say that I did not love you. I loved you more every day! You can't say that I cast my eyes on other women—and I had no thought of her. But when I felt her by me my blood took fire. When we sat down to eat, I was afraid to look up. Wherever I turned she was there, before me—always! At night, when we were in bed, and I was lying close by you in the midnight silence of the house, all I could feel was her. I could hear her breathe as if her lips ​had been at my ear. I wept for spite, for bitterness! I prayed to God, I scourged myself. I could have killed myself—and her! Words cannot tell the horror I went through. The few times that we were alone, I ran from her like a wild man. If I had stayed I don't know what might have happened: I might have kissed her, I might have dug my knife into her!

Raimunda. Yes, you were mad—and you did not know it. It could only have ended in death. Why didn't we find some man for her? She could have married. You ought not to have kept her from Norbert.

Esteban. It was not her marrying, it was her going away. I could not live without the feel of her; I craved her day and night. All her hate, her spite, her turning away—which she always did—cut me to the heart; then, I came to depend upon it. I could not live without it; it was part of my life. That is what it was—I didn't realize it myself, because it always seemed to me as if it could not be—such things could not really be. I was afraid to face it. But now, I have confessed it to you. It is true! It is true! I can never forgive myself, not even though you might forgive me.

Raimunda. The evil cannot be cured by forgiveness; if I do not forgive you, it will not take the evil away. When I first heard of it, it seemed to me that no punishment could be too severe. Now, I don't know. To do what you did, you must have been all evil. But you were always kind and good, in season and out, to my daughter, when she was a child, when she was grown—and to me. I have seen it with my own eyes. You were good to all the servants from the day that you entered this house, to the men, to everybody who came near. You have been faithful and loyal, and worked hard for the honor of this house. A man cannot be good so long and become all bad in one day. Yet these things are; ​I know it. It chills my heart. When my mother was alive—God rest her soul!—we always laughed because she used to say that many a deed had been foretold in this world that afterward took place exactly as it had been foretold. We never believed it, but now I know it is true. The dead do not leave us when they die, though we lay them in the ground. They walk by the side of those that they loved in this life, of those that they hated with a hate that was stronger than death. They are with us, day and night. We do not see them, but they whisper in our ears. They put thoughts into our minds which are evil and wicked and strange, which we never can believe could be part of ourselves.

Esteban. Do you mean?…

Raimunda. Vengeance! This is vengeance from the other world. My daughter's father will not forgive me in heaven; he will never accept a second father for his child. There are some things which we cannot explain in this life. A good man like you cannot, all of a sudden, cease to be good; for you were good.…

Esteban. I was—I was always. When you say it, you don't know what happiness, what boundless joy it is to me!

Raimunda. Hush! Not so loud! I hear some one in the other part of the house. It is Norbert's father and his friends. They are going to take him away. If it had been the judge he would have come to this door. Stay here; I'll find out. Go in and wash; change your shirt. Don't let any one see you like this. You look.…

Esteban. Like a murderer, eh? Say it.

Raimunda. No, no, Esteban! We mustn't dwell on these things. We must stop this talk; that is first. Then we can think. Acacia can go to the nuns for a few days at Encinar. They are fond of her; they always ask how she is. Then ​I can write to my sister-in-law, Eugenia; she likes her. She can go to Andrada and live with her. She might marry, who knows? There are fine boys there—the town is rich—and she is the best match in our village. Then she could come back and have her children, and we would be grandfather and grandmother, and grow old with them around us, and be happy once more in this house. If only.…

Esteban. What?

Raimunda. If only.…

Esteban. The dead man.

Raimunda. Yes. He will always be here, between us.

Esteban. Always. The rest we can forget. [Goes into the room.

Raimunda. Acacia! Were you there?

Acacia. Yes. Why not? Can't you see? Norbert's father is here with the men.

Raimunda. What are they doing?

Acacia. They seem more reasonable; they were surprised to find him better. Now they are waiting for the judge. He is down at Sotillo examining the men. He will come here as soon as he is done.

Raimunda. I'll keep an eye on them.

Acacia. I have something to say to you first, mother.

Raimunda. You? Something to say? What is the matter with you? I am frightened. You never say anything.

Acacia. I heard what you mean to do with me.

Raimunda. You were listening at the keyhole, were you?

Acacia. Yes, because it was my duty to hear. I had to know what you were doing with this man. It seems that I am the one who is in the way in this house. I have done ​nothing wrong, so I have to take the blame, while you stay here and enjoy yourself with your husband. You forgive him and turn me out, so that you can be alone together!

Raimunda. What are you talking about? Who is turning you out? Who ever put that idea into your head?

Acacia. I heard what you said. You want to send me to the convent at Encinar and shut me up, I suppose, for the rest of my life.

Raimunda. How can you say such a thing? Didn't you tell me yourself that you wanted to go there and stay for a few days with the nuns? Didn't I refuse to let you go for fear that you would never come back, if you once saw the inside of the cloister? How often have you begged me to let you go to your Aunt Eugenia? Now, when it would be a good tiling for us all, for the good of the family, which is your family—I tell you that we must hold our heads high—now what do you want me to do? Do you expect me to give up my husband—the man it was your duty to love as a father?

Acacia. You are as bad as Juliana. I suppose it was all my fault?

Raimunda. I don't say that. But he never looked on you as a daughter because you were never a daughter to him.

Acacia. I suppose I flaunted myself in his face? I suppose I made him kill Faustino?

Raimunda. Not so loud! Somebody might hear!

Acacia. Well, this time you won't find it so easy to have your way. You want to save this man and hush it up, but I am going to tell what I know to the judge, to everybody. I have only my honor to think of, not that of a man who hasn't any, who never had any—who is a criminal!

Raimunda. Silence! Not so loud! It freezes my heart ​to hear you. You hate him—and I had almost forgiven him!

Acacia. Yes, I do hate him. I always did hate him, and he knows it. If he doesn't want me to speak, to denounce him, let him kill me. I can die—that is what I can do—die. Let him kill me! Then, perhaps, once for all, you might learn to hate him.

Raimunda. Hush, I say!—Here he comes. [Esteban enters] Esteban!

Esteban. She is right. She is not the one who ought to go. Only I don't want her to give me up. I will do it myself. I am strong now. I will go out on the road to meet them. Let me go, Raimunda. You have your child. You forgive me, but she never will. She hated me from the beginning.

Raimunda. No, Esteban, don't you go! Esteban, my life!

Esteban. No, let me go, or I will call Norbert's father. I will tell him.…

Raimunda. [To Acacia] Now you see what you have done. It was your fault. Esteban! Esteban!

Acacia. Mother, don't let him go!

Raimunda. Ah!

Esteban. No, she wants to betray me. Why did you hate me like this? You never once called me father. You don't know how I loved you!

Acacia. Mother, mother——

Esteban. La Malquerida! The Passion Flower! I hang my head. But once—once how I could have loved you!

Raimunda. For once, call him father.

Esteban. She will never forgive me.

Raimunda. But she must! Throw your arms about his ​neck. Call him father. Even the dead will forgive us then, and be happy in our happiness.

Esteban. Daughter!

Acacia. Esteban!… My God! Esteban!

Esteban. Ah!

Raimunda. But you don't call him father. Has she fainted? Ah! Lip to lip, and you clutch her in your arms! Let go, let go! Now I see why you won't call him father. Now I see that it was your fault—and I curse you!

Acacia. Yes, it was. Kill me! It is true, it is true! He is the only man I ever loved.

Esteban. Ah!

Raimunda. What do you say? What is that? I will kill you—yes, and be damned with it!

Esteban. Stand back!

Acacia. Save me!

Esteban. Stand back, I say!

Raimunda. Ah! Now I see! It is plain to me now. And it is just as well! What is one murder to me? We can all die. Here! Come, everybody! The murderer! I have the murderer! Take this wicked woman, for she is not my child!

Acacia. Run! Get away!

Esteban. Yes, together—to hell! For I am damned for love of you. Come! They can hunt us like wild beasts among the rocks. To love you and hold you, I will be as the wild beasts, that know neither father nor mother!

Raimunda. Help! Help! Come quick! The murderer! The murderer!

Esteban. Out of my way! Take care who crosses me!

Raimunda. Stay where you are!—The murderer!

​Esteban. Out of my way, I tell you!

Raimunda. Over my dead body!

Esteban. Yes—[Raising his gun he shoots Raimunda.

Raimunda. Ah!

Juliana. God in heaven!—Raimunda!

Rubio. What have you done?

A Man. Kill him!

Esteban. Yes, kill me! I don't defend myself.

Bernabé. No! Put the law on him!

Juliana. It was this man, this wretched man!—Raimunda!—He has killed her!—Raimunda! Don't you hear?

Raimunda. Yes, Juliana. Don't let me die without confession. I am dying now. This blood.… No matter—Acacia! Acacia!

Juliana. Acacia!—Where is she?

Acacia. Mother, mother!

Raimunda. Ah! Then you are not crying for him? It consoles me.

Acacia. No, mother! You are my mother!

Juliana. She is dying! Quick—Raimunda!

Acacia. Mother, mother!

Raimunda. This man cannot harm you now. You are saved. Blessed be the blood that saves, the blood of our Lord Jesus Christ!