SCENE VII

_Don Lorenzo and Juana._

JUANA. [_After a pause._] Have they already gone?

DON LORENZO. Yes, dear Juana. We are alone.

JUANA. At last. At last has come the hour so long desired. All things come—and all things pass! Listen to me, Lorenzo. Life is slipping from me so quickly, so quickly, and I have still so many things to say to you. The first is—I am innocent. I did not think—I did not want—I did——[_Tears interrupt her._]

DON LORENZO. I know it, Juana—I know it.

JUANA. You do not know. Everything is against me—everything.

DON LORENZO. I beg you not to worry yourself in this way. Forget all, and rest.

JUANA. Forget, yes. I shall soon enough forget. Rest! I have so much time before me for resting that to-day I desire to live—although I suffer, although I weep. I would carry with me into the grave even the tears and sobs along with the kisses—that its silence and solitude might be filled with some remembrance of life. [_Pause._] That is why I want to tell you something. But how can I without preparing you? Now, so that doubt may not come first before revelation, and before doubt suspicion, and before suspicion presentiment, and before presentiment that nameless something, the shadow cast upon the soul by that which comes from afar? You do not understand me, and I do not know how to explain myself, though it is now twenty years since I first harboured the one idea. Judge if I ought to be able to explain it well.

DON LORENZO. Tell me anything you like, only do not get excited over it.

JUANA. Yes, I will tell you all. How could I die without doing so? In the first place, if only to prove to you that I am not a miserable—thief. [_Hides her face._]

DON LORENZO. Hush, hush! Do not pronounce the word.

JUANA. And then—the sole consolation left me is to open my heart to you. Forgive me, Lorenzo. The dying are so selfish. For you it will be a horrible shock—while for me it will be a supreme benediction.

DON LORENZO. If it were so for you, my dear Juana, how could it be a horrible shock for me?

JUANA. How! But so it will be—so it will be, my son. My son! Give me leave to name you such. You are not angry with me?—truly?

DON LORENZO. I beseech you, Juana!

JUANA. Well, then, my son will I call you, and you too must call me mother. Call me mother, once. Let it please heaven or hell, mother you must name me.

DON LORENZO. Mother!

JUANA. Not so—not in that way. Cruel boy! [_Leans to embrace him. Jerks herself back and falls on sofa._]

DON LORENZO. Poor woman! She is delirious.