“What is to be done, what is to be done?”
“Nothing, mother dear. You can do nothing. Let Vittoria execrate me to-morrow; let her consider me as the cause of all her misfortune; let me be an object of repulsion to her. It is better so.”
“But you already have a sweetheart, after two years of married life?”
“Who, I, a sweetheart? You are joking, mother?”
“Who, Gemma? Oh, what a saint you are, my mother! We don’t call those sweethearts. They are a slight distraction; a home where there is a different woman who greets you with constant good humour, who lets you play or joke or sleep as you please; who asks you nothing, who understands nothing, but who does not ask to be understood.”
“O Saint Arduina! O sainted mother mine!”
“Your wife knows of this relation: they have told her of it as being a great scandal.”
“If you like I will leave Gemma, mother dear.”
“If you were not an angel you would know that it is not a question of love. But if it annoys you so much I will leave Gemma.”
“Nevertheless, I shall soon take another. And after her a third and a fourth.”
“You never used to be so, sonny! You have never before said such things to me.”
Her tone was so sorrowful, that it smote the son. He half raised himself in bed, exclaiming--
“It is true, it is true, mother! But there is nothing left for me to do but to become a dissolute.”
“What horror!” and she hid her face in her hands.
“A horror, is it not? I cause you horror, my sainted mother, my angelic mother! See to what life has brought me. A great, powerful, and beautiful love has only lasted a short time with me, and has left my heart dead to every fresh ardour. Mother, no one will take the place of Maria Guasco in my existence; she has been all, and that all has descended into the tomb. Afterwards I tried to attach myself to an idea, to a sentiment, to a loving duty, but the creature herself for whom I wished to live, for whom I wished to fight my life, spurned me and fled from me. What more have I to do? I have no love, I have no affection, I have no son, and I have no family risen from me. Nothing remains but to become a vicious and perverse person, to allow all my wicked instincts to pour from me; to give myself to women and play; to lose my fortune; to abase my name; to be a trivial pleasure-lover, and to cause you horror, my mother.”