"And supposing I allow, although against my will, that she is guilty, tell me, who has given the Duke a right upon the life of his wife? Has this judge a clear conscience? Is the accuser himself innocent? Has this priest pure hands? And if he is not innocent, why dares he to judge and condemn in others the guilt he has himself committed?"
"Oh! it is a far different thing in a man than in a woman. She brings children into the family that should never be there, divides property among persons with whom it should never be shared: the suspected illegitimate child is shunned by all; they scorn him, and he hates them; and we have too often seen that these bad buds bring forth in families bloody fruits."
"That is not so; for do you ever see a man who bringing forth children out of a house, abandons them? And if he does, the world blames him, and his conscience reproves him for it; and if he provides for them, does he not unjustly diminish the property of his legitimate children? No; equal are the duties, equal is the crime, and equal should be the pardon or the punishment."
"Yet it is not so, and I do not believe as you say. There must be a reason for it, although I do not know one...."
"Listen, you cannot find one, because there is none; if there was, it would come into your mind spontaneously. Thinking within myself I have seen that the world rests upon certain principles, called truths: some of them you can see and touch; and great scholars as well as fools agree to them, and say—it is right;—others, though, are not understood, they seem like alchemy, and we must distil our brains over them to make them comprehensible. The first seem to me lawful money, the second spurious; the first comes from nature, the second from artifice."
"Ah! good women should not reason so skilfully, but obey the laws men make for them...."
"A violent law, an unjust judge, a wicked punishment."
"In God's truth, you have become such a reasoner, that I am afraid. Who put such immodest words into your mouth?"
"Reason...."
"Or perhaps the necessity of defending your own evil deeds?" And maddened by anger, Cecchino took a knife from the table, and passing it through the tablecloth, stuck it nearly an inch into the table. Poor Mary, excited in favor of her mistress, took no notice of this; but with obstinate petulance continued:—"What deeds are you imagining? I tell you there should not be two weights and two measures, and there are not...."