You and I know quite well; and there is nothing extraordinary in all this.... A few days ago, you would not have needed so much urging; and I do not understand that to-day, when the price of love is something quite different, to-day, when a life, dear to you among all lives.... MARY MAGDALENE Ah, you do not understand!... And to think that scarcely any one, not even those who loved him, would understand better!... Am I then the only being that has seen into his soul?... And yet it is not so very difficult!... He has spoken to me only three times in my life, but I know what he thinks. I know all that he wishes, I know all that he is as completely as though I were within him, or as though he were there, near me, fixing upon my brow his glance in which the angels come down from heaven, as on the evening when I kissed his feet and wiped them with my hair.... VERUS I well knew that I came too late, but I should never have believed that you had gone so far.... If he has spoken to you only three times, he has not wasted the minutes and has told you enough to remove my doubts.... But let us be calm. It is a question other than of love; and your lover himself, were he consulted, would judge that a kiss does not weigh much in the presence of death.... Since you love him so well, is his life not worth a slight displeasure, which but lately would not have inspired you with such horror?... If there were a looking-glass in this room, I would go and gaze at myself with curiosity, to make out what, in a few days, has made me so repulsive that the torture of the one man whom you adore is preferred to the touch of my lips!... But what is the matter?... One would think that I was speaking of unimaginable things!... What have I said? What have I done?... Your face is distorted.... There is no need to look at me like that, with mad and terrified eyes, as though they beheld the fall of the sun or the violation of a tomb!... MARY MAGDALENE Let me be.... You cannot know.... I am only beginning to understand.... VERUS A few days since, you were not so slow in understanding.... MARY MAGDALENE (_in a soft and distant voice_) Yes, yes.... For one sees only little by little.... (_Staring before her_) It is unfolded slowly, like a thing that has no beginning, no end, no name.... There are two deaths here, I hold two deaths in my hand; and that is too heavy a weight for a poor creature born upon this earth.... VERUS Two deaths?... What do you mean?... You do not intend to follow him, surely?... Your death, since he loves you, would only add a very useless bitterness to his.... MARY MAGDALENE (_in the same soft and distant voice_) No.... I am not speaking of mine.... It is two other deaths.... I still have my senses.... I can see clearly in the abyss.... Let me look, where you can see nothing.... VERUS I should not have thought that, when I came to bring you his safety and the great sacrifice which I am making to love....