Page:Edward Prime-Stevenson - The Intersexes.djvu/362

 you deceive yourself!—allow yourself illusions—"

"Be that so; but I have suffered!

"Not enough; since you still believe in the kindness of this world. Have you not found out the masques, the puppets, the buffoons which are all about us, who sneer and snivel in mockery? For my part, I know of only one school where one can learn them better—the madhouse. There, in their cells, they show what they are …"

"Father Serafino used to tell me that. But, there was Micaela—she believed in me …"

"Nonsense! Has not a single phrase thrown at you, only one vain accusation, been enough to make her fall down in a fainting-fit!—to desert you! I thought you had more sense, my dear fellow! Except when women are mothers—which is their sanctification though not always 'except'—women are nothing but so many skirts with emotions under them! Look at yourself. You are their rival! How do you wish women to love you?"

"I—I do not know them …"

Jélaine was silent. Then after a moment, "Come—come with me." he faltered, while the wind seemed to snatch away the voice from his lips.

"It would have been better to leave all," answered Nino, looking over the town, where the lights were already extinguished … "better to say 'Never more!" …

"Come—come with me! " repeated Jélaine beseechingly …

But Nino stood up, very pale, his lips half-parted but silent. In that instant, God knows what prayers, what remorses were sobbing about the world, without echo.

"Nino—come—!"

Nino turned away, with no reply. The sky was clearer now. The Milky Way already shimmered over Verona. Above the gray-black level of the roofs, dominating the marble balustrades and blanch terraces, rose the many campanili, slender, as if chiseled out with.their crosses. One would have said that he was in an immense cemetery. Crosses! Oh, there must indeed have been some part of the divine in those things, that whole generations of men should have lived, slept, wept, around that symbol of torment! Why not take it as after all emblem of the evil of a world?—the sign of our own disenchanted hearts? Imagination creates a large part of truth; perhaps the most charming part of truth since, it just hesitates on the side of error. To 'believe', has been enough to put Death above Love, to throw beside the tomb of a Juliette the grimacing