CodalSearch this book — or all of Codal…⌘K
nydus/Readings from Modern Mexican AuthorsPublic
Page 200 of 363
Table of Contents

JOSÉ PEON Y CONTRERAS.

heart, and which escaped from your lips like an echo—I heard my name.—What was this, Sancho?—Tell me.

S.: A dream!—an awful nightmare! I know not whether I dreamed. I know not whether I was awake. I saw you, Blanca, humiliated, degraded, vile,—— ... and in this fearful struggle between my love and my vengeance——

B.: Your vengeance!

S.: You do not know what that is! Grief wrung my soul; I felt madness in my brain; despair sprung up in my heart as the tempest in the black centre of the storm-cloud and a torrent of blasphemies and prayers broke from my lips.

B.: Sancho! But you are still delirious!

S.: No, Blanca; no, my poor Blanca—Now, I am not delirious; no! but I believe indeed, I shall go mad. There still continues, in my soul, a frightful combat—here I feel the battle, fierce, desperate,—mortal. Go—recover yourself.—Leave me alone!

B.: Sancho!

S.: I love you.—Go——!

(Blanca leaves, weeping.)

SCENE V.

Sancho, who has watched Blanca disappear, when she has gone, says: Unhappy being! Why does a cursed blood course through your veins? Aye!—What blame have I, for having loved you ere I knew the stock from which you came—the blood that gives color and freshness to your cheeks, smile to your lips, light to your eyes? Why do I love you,

200