You at last, my Verus!... For three days I have awaited you, for three days I have called you. Men grant me my beauty when its triumph brings me nothing but regret and disgust. And I ask myself, is that beauty really powerless when, at last, there is a question of the happiness which every woman has the right to expect in her life?... VERUS I know not if I shall be able to give you the happiness that is your due, Magdalene; but be assured that your beauty never gained a more complete victory.... MARY MAGDALENE What care I now for its victory!... It is I who am vanquished, utterly vanquished beforehand, without daring to confess it to myself, without being able to hide it from my indifference, so odiously acquired, or from my vanity, which has never been more than the shameful crown of my shame!... But why keep me waiting so long?... I thought that everything was abandoning me, that all was lost because of the dreadful words which I spoke at our good Silanus’ and which were not true, which were only a profounder lie then my other lies, because I was mad, because I did not know, because I did not wish for an impossible happiness.... VERUS You well know, Magdalene, that I never believed you the woman you depicted.... But now neither do I dare believe in the happiness that approaches.... I am quite dazzled, I doubt, I grope in the dark.... I do not recognize the voice that has so often and so harshly repelled me. MARY MAGDALENE (_in VERUS’ arms_) It is not the same voice, it is not the same soul.... VERUS And yet it is really you whom I hold in my arms, it is every parcel of you whom I have implored so long!... I ask myself still if all is indeed real, if all is indeed possible, if you are not trifling with a too-credulous happiness which you will fling aside among all those which beauty shatters when testing its power.... But no, when I question, when I follow your eyes that plunge into mine, I see that it is indeed true, that it was always true.... MARY MAGDALENE