her mother, her children, England, her whole past. This old accomplished self was curiously invulnerable and insentient, curiously hard and “free.” In it, she was an individual and her own mistress. The other self was vulnerable, and organically connected with Cipriano, even with Ramón and Teresa, and so was not “free” at all.
She was aware of a duality in herself, and she suffered from it. She could not definitely commit herself, either to the old way of life, or to the new. She reacted from both. The old was a prison, and she loathed it. But in the new way she was not her own mistress at all, and her egoistic will recoiled.
“That’s just it!” she said. “It is a necessity in me, and you want to prevent me.”
“No! No!”