a hole, a wound in the middle of him. She could almost feel it, in her own bowels.
And if, with his efforts, he killed himself?—Then, she said, Cipriano would come apart, and it would be all finished.
Ah, why should a man have to make these efforts on behalf of a beastly, malevolent people who weren’t worth it! Better let the world come to an end, if that was what it wanted.
She thought of Teresa soothing him, soothing him and saying nothing. And him like a great helpless, wounded thing! It was rather horrible, really. Herself, she would have to expostulate, she would have to try to prevent him. Why should men damage themselves with this useless struggling and fighting, and then come home to their women to be restored!
To Kate, the fight simply wasn’t worth one wound. Let the beastly world of man come to an end, if that was its destiny, as soon as possible. Without lifting a finger to prevent it.—Live one’s own precious life, that was given but once, and let the rest go its own hellish way.
She would have had to try to prevent Ramón from giving himself to destruction this way. She was willing for him to be ten Living Quetzalcoatls. But not to expose himself to the devilish malevolence of people.
Yet he would do it. Even as Joachim had done. And Teresa, with her silence and her infinitely soft administering, she would heal him far better than Kate, with her expostulation and her opposition.
“Ah!” said Kate to herself. “I’m glad Cipriano is a soldier, and doesn’t get wounds in his soul.”
At the same time, she knew that without Ramón, Cipriano was just an instrument,