“Ah! beg pardon. I never remember anything. What church are you going to?”
“The same church, Santa Chiara.”
“But your religion makes you suffer, dear.”
“Everything makes me suffer, Alberto mio. It is my destiny. But it is well to suffer for God’s sake!”
“Let us both take holy vows, Lucia.”
“You are joking, but I did seriously intend to be a nun. It was my father who prevented me from doing so. God grant that he may not repent of it.”
“Why, Lucia? Think, if you had become a nun, we should not have met and loved each other, and you would never have been my dear wife.”
“What is the good of love and marriage? All is corruption, everything in this world is putrid.”
“Lucia, you are lugubrious.”
“Forgive me, Alberto mio, the gloom that overshadows my soul leaks out and saddens my beloved one. I will smile sooner than you should be sad.”