_Guido Colonna_, in the consciousness that the woman belongs to him, that no man may even look, with desire, upon her dazzling beauty, resents this mortal insult. He is willing that all the other women should face danger, that the little children of Pisa should be exposed to hunger and destruction, rather than that he give up his possession. But _Monna Vanna_ does not hesitate. When she is before the issue of saving her people, she does not stop to consider. She goes into the enemy's tent, as a child might go, without consciousness of self, imbued solely with the impulse to save her people.
The meeting of _Monna Vanna_ and _Prinzivalle_ is an exquisite interpretation of love--the sweetness, purity, and fragrance of _Prinzivalle's_ love for the woman of his dream--the one he had known when she was but a child, and who remained an inspiring vision all through his career. He knows he cannot reach her; he also knows that he will be destroyed by the political intriguers of Florence, and he stakes his all on this one step to satisfy the dream of his life to see _Vanna_ and in return to save Pisa.
_Prinzivalle._ Had there come ten thousand of you into my tent, all clad alike, all equally fair, ten thousand sisters whom even their mother would not know apart, I should have risen, should have taken your hand, and said, "This is she!" Is it not strange that a beloved image can live thus in a man's heart? For yours lived so in mine that each day it changed as in real life--the image of to-day replaced that of yesterday--it blossomed out, it became always fairer; and the years adorned it with all that they add to a child that grows in grace and beauty. But when I saw you again, it seemed to me at first that my eyes deceived me. My memories were so fair and so fond--but they had been too slow and too timid--they had not dared to give you all the splendor which appeared so suddenly to dazzle me. I was as a man that recalled to mind a flower he had but seen in passing through a garden on a gray day, and should be suddenly confronted with a hundred thousand as fair in a field bathed with sunshine. I saw once more your hair, your brow, your eyes, and I found all the soul of the face I had adored--but how its beauty shames that which I had treasured in silence through endless days, through years whose only light was a memory that had taken too long a road and found itself outshone by the reality!... Ah! I knew not too well what I meant to do. I felt that I was lost--and I desired to drag with me all I could.... And I hated you, because of the love.... Yes, I should have gone to the end had it not been _you_.... Yet any other would have seemed odious to me--you yourself would have had to be other than you are.... I lose my reason when I think of it.... One word would have been enough that was different from your words--one gesture that was not yours--the slightest thing would have inflamed my hate and let loose the monster. But when I saw you, I saw in that same moment that it was impossible.