“Useless!” cried the Frenchman.
“Why, monsieur,” the Duchess went on, “what can you find in a book that is better than what we have in our hearts? Italy is mad.”
“I cannot see that a people is mad because it wishes to be its own master,” said the physician.
“Good Heavens!” exclaimed the Duchess, eagerly, “does not that mean paying with a great deal of bloodshed for the right of quarreling, as you do, over crazy ideas?”
“Then you approve of despotism?” said the physician.
“Why should I not approve of a system of government which, by depriving us of books and odious politics, leaves men entirely to us?”
“I had thought that the Italians were more patriotic,” said the Frenchman.
Massimilla laughed so slyly that her interlocutor could not distinguish mockery from serious meaning, nor her real opinion from ironical criticism.
“Then you are not a liberal?” said he.
“Heaven preserve me!” said she. “I can imagine nothing in worse taste than such opinions in a woman. Could you love a woman whose heart was occupied by all mankind?”