“I must begin by saying that I always was fully conscious of my own slender merit, and that the moral world was to me a citadel with closed and barred gates. I never had any wish to expose myself to the labour of besieging the citadel or scaling its walls. It was my fortune—or misfortune, which, it is hard to decide—not to believe in God or in anything beyond this atrocious barred dungeon in which we are confined; and with this comfortable lack of creed I enjoyed a tranquil frame of mind which lulled my spirit to lethargy and enabled me to remain supremely indifferent to the good or bad opinion of others.”
The priest, really horrified at hearing such an appalling profession of faith, again turned to go, saying that he was open to confession, but did not profess to tame monsters; but Federico only smiled, and detaining the Italian he went on:
“But stay. I have something to say that may perhaps please you better.—I am weary of it all. I have been rich, and poor; powerful, and a beggar; I have seen all that is to be seen and enjoyed all that is to be enjoyed. With regard to women, I may say that on the whole I despise them; and I have no belief in anybody’s virtue. If you ask my opinion of men I can only say with the sceptical poet: ‘Plus je connais les hommes plus j’aime les chiens.’”[A]
[A] The better I know men, the better I love dogs.
“Allow me to advise you to go and live in the company of dogs, or to found a canine colony where you will feel more at your ease,” said Paoletti with grim irony. “I am only waiting to see if any spark of light will flash from the horrible blackness of your soul. But I see none.”
“I am coming to a delicate point. You know all about my wife.—When I was supposed to be dead she fell in love with another man. I believe she had loved him long before. Pepa hated me from the day she married me. In point of fact I did everything to justify her hatred. I treated her ill, I degraded her, I compromised her again and again by my pecuniary delinquencies; I spent her money on other women; my language was not refined, any more than my behaviour; I looked upon her as a useful piece of property, neither more nor less.”
“Enough of this!” exclaimed the priest, starting away from him as though he were some loathesome vermin. “If this is a confession of sin I will listen to it; but if it is merely an outrageous display of hardened cynicism I cannot—I cannot bear it.”
“You have interrupted me at the most important point. I was just going to say that now my wife to a certain extent commands my respect; that I acknowledge myself guilty towards her, and in every way her inferior, that I deserve her contempt; that it is only natural, and even legitimate in theory—I may warn you that I too have theories—and I admit that, in theory, it is only natural that Pepa should love another man: as natural as that the birds should build their nests in the branches of trees rather than in the jaws of foxes.”
“It never can be natural and legitimate for a married woman to love any man but her husband,” said Paoletti very gravely. “What would have been natural and legitimate is that your wife, instead of listening to the addresses of a married man and contributing to the martyrdom of a perfect angel, should have dedicated to God the affections you have ceased to deserve.”
“Mysticism is a figurative fount which cannot satisfy the thirsty. She did not crave to love a phantom but a man. I have reasons for believing that she has loved him from her childhood. In one of our violent quarrels, which used to be of daily occurrence, she said: ‘You are not my husband and never have been; my husband is there....’ and she tapped her forehead. Another time she said: ‘Marrying you was a deliberate act of self-degradation.’ In short, respected father, at this moment I confess to a grain of respect for the wretched soul who has been my victim. As a woman I do not care a straw for her. She does not appeal to my heart, to my imagination, or to my senses. So far as love goes, I could almost let her go, let her break one tie to form the other; but my pride rebels. Another thing I may tell you is that I hate the man; I have hated him ever since we were at college together; I believe that my aversion and her love have run in parallel grooves till an unlucky moment when they came into collision, and broke out in conflict,—and I must conquer—I must conquer.”