The Eternal City
Page 239XIII
"MY DEAR DAVID ROSSI,--All day long I've been carrying your
letter round like a reliquary, taking a peep at it in cabs, and
even, when I dare, in omnibuses and the streets.
"What you say about Bruno has put me in a fever, and I have
written to the Director-General for permission to visit the
prison. Even Lawyer Napoleon is of opinion that Bruno is being
made a victim of that secret inquisition. No Holy Inquisition was
ever more unscrupulous. Lawyer N. says the authorities in Italy
have inherited the traditions of a bad régime. To do evil to
prevent others from doing it is horrible. But in this case it is
doing evil to prevent others from doing good. I am satisfied that
place! Would their plots have any effect upon me? I should die
first.
"And now about my friend. I can hardly hold my pen when I write of
her. What you say is so good, so noble. I might have known what
you would think, and yet....
"Dearest, how can I go on? Can't you divine what I wish to tell
you? Your letter compels me to confess. Come what may, I can hold
off no longer. Didn't you guess who my poor friend was? I thought
you would remember our former correspondence when you pretended to
love somebody else. You haven't thought of it apparently, and that
is only another proof--a bitter sweet one this time--of your love
be speaking of myself. I was, and my poor friend is my poor self.
"It has made me suffer all along to see what a pedestal of purity
you placed me on. The letters you wrote before you told me you
loved me, when you were holding off, made me ashamed because I
knew I was not worthy. More than once when you spoke of me as so
good, I couldn't look into your eyes. I felt an impulse to cry,
'No, no, no,' and to smirch the picture you were painting. Yet how
could I do it? What woman who loves a man can break the idol in
his heart? She can only struggle to lift herself up to it. That
was what I tried to do, and it is not my fault that it is not
done.
have made me speak. One such moment was before we married. Do you
remember that I tried to tell you something? You were kind, and
you would not listen. 'The past is past,' you said, and I was only
too happy to gloss it over. You didn't know what I wished to say,
or you would not have silenced me. I knew, and I have suffered
ever since. I had to speak, and you see how I have spoken. And
now I feel as if I had tricked you. I have got you to commit
yourself to opinions and to a line of conduct. Forgive me! I will
not hold you to anything. Take it all back, and I shall have no
right to complain.