“I am sure that she has suffered, and is suffering about this.”
“Perhaps yes, perhaps no. At any rate she dissimulates perfectly, that is to say, mother, she lies; I can’t go beyond appearances.”
“Mamma, I have always been used to truthful women. You are one of them. Vittoria is a hypocrite.”
“Certainly. I recognise it. But she has done everything to make me so. If only you knew, mamma, what I was to her at the beginning! If only you knew! Suffering, weak and exhausted by an immense passion, I tried to conquer myself. I searched for strength, for gaiety, for tenderness to give them to Vittoria. Since it was said to me: _render this woman happy, do this work of repentance and beauty_, I have tried to obey, mamma; but everything has been useless. Vittoria has not understood me.”
“Perhaps you have not understood her. She loved you ardently from the first moment of her engagement; she still loves you so.”
“No, mamma, no. Either Vittoria does not love me or she does not know how to love.”
“So young, so inexperienced, and so ignorant!”
“Mother, mother, Vittoria knew everything. All my violent and brutal betrayal has told her that my only and unique love romance has been with Maria Guasco; the only one, mamma. She dreamed of making another in matrimony, another romance of passion and madness, as if matrimony were not a union wise and tender, sweet and profound, not passionate and frenetic.”
“She deceived herself. She hoped for too much. She dared to hope too much. Don’t punish her for that.”
“It is she who has punished me for having wished to make her happy. All my affection has seemed little to her, all my tenderness has seemed mean to her. But you know, mamma, how she and she only has spurned me. You know that I have seen all my proofs of affection refused.”
“It is so. From the moment that I could not offer her passion, she did not wish to know me. A silent drama, understand, a drama of matrimony developed between us, and I have had ever before me a face as pale and cold as marble; she is a soul closed, indifferent and scornful; she is a spirit that is inattentive and bored, and hers is an iciness which sometimes reaches the point of contempt.”
“Oh, Marco, in spite of that she adored you and does adore you!”