"At last! Ever since you left I have been longing for you to touch upon this question. How did I explain myself that night, in my painful emotion? How did you understand me, in your equally painful emotion? For months and months I have felt the necessity of speaking of this to you, and I have never done so because I lacked courage.
"You will remember you accused me of pride that night. I implore you to believe that I am not proud. I cannot even understand such an accusation.
"Your letter gives me the idea that you think I have returned to a belief in God. But did I ever tell you that I do not believe in God? I cannot have told you so, for the whole history of my opinions is engraved upon my mind, and the fright, the distressing thought that I might perhaps no longer be able to believe in God, came to me after you left. I know the day, the very hour. At S. Mamette I had heard them talking of a great dinner your grandmother had given at Brescia, while I could not even procure the food and wine necessary for the diet the doctor—fearing the loss of the right eye—had prescribed for our beloved Uncle. I struggled against these awful shadows, Franco, and I conquered. It is true the victory is due, in a great measure, to Maria. I mean that if all these black clouds hide the existence of Supreme Justice from me, a ray of light from it reaches me through Maria; and this ray of light makes me believe, makes me hope in the Orb. For it would be too horrible if the universe were not governed by justice!
"That night then, I can only have told you that I understood religion in a different way from you; that prayers and acts of Christian faith did not seem to me essential to the religious idea, but rather love and actions for those who suffer, rather indignation and actions against those who cause suffering!
"And you wish to resume your silence? No, you must not. You feel weak, you say. Do you feel you yourself are weak, or your Credo? Let us reason, let us discuss. Confess that one reason why you who believe, love your beliefs, is because they are comfortably restful to the intellect. You stretch yourselves at your ease in them as in a hammock, suspended in the air by innumerable threads spun by men and fastened by men to many hooks. You are comfortable, and if any one examines or lays his hand upon one only of these threads, you are troubled, and afraid it will snap, because very probably its neighbour will snap also, and after that one, another; and so, to your great fright and pain, your fragile bed will come tumbling down from the sky to the earth. I know this fright and this pain, I know that the satisfaction of walking on solid ground must be purchased at this cost, and therefore I am not deterred by a pity that would be false from discussing with you. But I may be mistaken, and perhaps it may be you who will lift me up, up to your resting place of fragile threads and air. Maria is not equal to this task. If Maria makes me believe in God, it does not follow that she can make me believe in the Church as well. And you yourself believe in the Church above all things. Therefore try to convince me, and I also will listen in suspense, and though I do not pray, at least I can hope, because now my longing for a perfect union with you is stronger than ever before. Now, together with my old affection, I feel a new admiration for you, a new gratitude towards you.
"Will you take offence at this outpouring of mine? Remember that you must have found a letter from me in your handbag, eight months ago, and that I have waited eight months for an answer!
"The Professor and Ester now meet at our house as fiancés. They, at least, are happy. She goes to church and he does not, and neither of them thinks any more about it than they do about the difference in the colour of their hair. And I believe nine hundred and ninety-nine couples in a thousand do the same."
"I embrace you. Write me a long, long letter.
"Luisa."
This letter did not leave Lugano until September 26th, and Franco received it on the 27th. On the 29th, at eight o'clock in the morning, he received the following telegram, also from Lugano: