"Yes, to the end!"
"I discovered you were kindness itself, that you had the warmest, most generous heart in the world, but that your faith and your religious practices rendered these treasures almost useless. You did not strive! You were satisfied to love me, the child, Italy, your flowers, your music, the beauty of the lake and the mountains. In this you followed your heart. As to a higher ideal, it was sufficient for you to believe and to pray. Without this faith and without these prayers you would have given the fire that is in your soul to that which is surely true, which is surely just in this world, you would have felt the same need to be doing that I feel. You are well aware, are you not, what I could have wished you to be in certain things? For example, who feels patriotism more keenly than you do? Surely no one. Well, I could have wished to see you endeavour to serve your country seriously, and according to your strength. Now you are indeed going to Piedmont, but your principal reason for doing so is that we have hardly anything left to live upon."
Franco, frowning angrily, made an impatient gesture of protest. "If you wish it I will stop," Luisa said humbly.
"No, no. Go on! Let us have the whole of it! It will be better!"
He spoke so excitedly, so angrily, that Luisa was silent, and it was only after a second, "Go on!" that she continued.
"Without going to Piedmont there would have been enough to do here in Valsolda, in Val Porlezza, in Vall' Intelvi; what V. does on the Lake of Como, communicating with different people, keeping the right spirit alive, preparing all that must be prepared against the coming of war, if, indeed, it ever comes. I used to tell you so, but you would not be convinced, you saw so many difficulties in the way. This sluggishness fostered my repugnance to your conception of religion, and my tendency towards another conception. For I also felt myself intensely religious. The conception of religion which was gradually shaping itself clearly in my mind was, in substance, as follows: God really exists, and is powerful and wise as you believe, but He is perfectly indifferent to our adoration of Him, and prayers to Him. What He demands of us is what we may learn from the heart he has formed for each one of us, from the conscience He has given us, from the surroundings in which He has placed us. He wishes us to love all that is good, to hate all that is evil, to labour with all our strength, according to this love and this hatred, and to occupy ourselves exclusively with the things of this world, with things we can comprehend, that can be felt! Now you will understand what my idea really is of my duty, of our duty, in the face of all injustice, all tyranny!"
The further she went in this definition, this exposure of her own views, the greater was the relief she experienced in so doing, in being perfectly sincere at last, in frankly taking her stand on her own firm ground, and gradually all indignation against her husband died down within her, and in her heart there arose a tender pity for him.
"Indeed," she added, "if it had been only this trouble about your grandmother, do you think I would not rather have sacrificed my own opinion a thousand times, rather than grieve you? There was something else underlying that. Now you know all. Now I have laid my bare soul in your hands."
She read dull pain and hostile coldness on her husband's brow. She rose and moved towards him very slowly, with clasped hands, gazing at him, seeking his eyes, which avoided hers, and then halted on the way, repulsed by some higher power, for he had neither spoken nor made a gesture.
"Franco!" she entreated, "can you no longer love me?"