"Because it behooves me at this solemn moment to hear it from your own lips, and be assured that you remember it, that you feel convinced of it.... Here I find myself surrounded by traitors,—for with the exception of my own relatives ... I dare not hope to escape being betrayed. You are then of my blood?... Now give me advice ... Isabella!... must I forgive, or kill her?" ...
"And shall I advise you?"
"Yes."
"But neither I nor any one else can believe me capable of that. You have more wisdom than I."
"I do not think so; and even were it so, do you not know that in such occasions man loses his wisdom? Come, I command you to advise me."
"And then ... consider, Giordano, how merciful is the Lord ... and how mild and clement appear those famous men who resemble Him.... Let the weakness of nature, the age of the woman, the bad examples among which she was educated, obtain mercy in your eyes; ... recall to your mind what you said to me a little while ago of her changeable mind, her poetic imagination, the time, the place, the occasion;—and even ... fate, Giordano, since we are all governed by an unconquerable fate—and use mercy ... Isabella can no longer present herself before you in her innocence, you can never love her again ... and perhaps not even esteem her ... and yet there remains a consolation to the injured one, bitter, it is true, but yet desirable, that is, to feel himself undeserving of the insult, and to see the offender truly repentant."
"You see that you do not want wisdom! You certainly do not lack eloquence!... And I thought so! In truth I would follow your advice, but one idea keeps me from it, which is this: in such an affair is my honor only at stake? Ought we not to consider the honor of the family as an entail, which I am not allowed to alienate, and not even diminish, but which I must restore to my children as pure and intact as I received it from my ancestors? Doing otherwise, does it not seem to you that some day I may hear my ancestors say to me:—what have you done with our patrimony?—and my children:—This is not our inheritance?"
"For my own part I believe that it is noble to seek and accomplish a difficult revenge; but it seems to me also a proof of a generous soul to relinquish the revenge that can be executed by merely wishing it. To conquer others is a praiseworthy thing, but to conquer one's own passions is manly and divine."
"And for this reason too would I be almost willing to pardon her; ... only that another motive distresses me, and closes my heart to mercy; and it is the refusal of my wife to reveal the name of her seducer."
"And do you not know it?"