Mary Magdalene monologue (Act 2) — Mary Magdalene: A Play in Three Acts

Yes, yes, it is true, it is true and it was always true.... I did not know it, I searched my heart in vain and I was ignorant of all my feelings until these days of anguish.... I refused to see that you were coming towards me and that everything was awaiting you.... And yet I ought to have known it.... Already, at Antioch, do you remember, Verus, how I avoided you?... I received so many others; and you alone, the comeliest, the purest, I tried to ignore, to blot out, to destroy.... As soon as you appeared, I withdrew, like a shy and distrustful animal, to my lair; and, only the other day, at our good Silanus’, I felt all the evil, all the cruelty, or all the despair that fills my heart rise to my lips.... But, to-day, I see; I am no longer the same; I no longer know myself, because I am myself once more.... All that used to resist is broken within my soul.... I no longer understand myself and I did not know that happiness is so strange a thing.... I, who never wept in my worst moments of distress, am sobbing to-day when happiness awaits me.... I am glad and light-hearted and yet more shattered than if all the misfortunes that hover in the skies were about to burst over me.... (_Embracing him more passionately_) Help me, my Verus, help me, support me, you whom nothing threatens, you who have nothing to fear!...