“But listen; there is that Galimberti, who follows you everywhere; who admires you from a distance; who loves you without daring to tell his love. I am sorry for him.”
“Alas! ’tis no fault of mine, Caterina, sai.”
“You know; perhaps he is poor; perhaps his feelings are hurt in all these rich houses, where he follows you. You are good. Spare him. He looks so unhappy.”
“What can I do? He is, like myself, a victim of fate, of fatality.”
“Of what fatality?”
“He is ill-starred, he deserves to be wealthy and handsome, and that is just what he is not. I ought to have come into the world either as an ignorant peasant or as queen of a people to whose happiness I could have ministered. We console ourselves by a correspondence which gives vent to our souls.”
“But he will fall over head and ears in love.”
“I cannot love any one: it is not given to me to love;” and Lucia fell into a rigid, all but statuesque attitude, like a Greek heroine caught in the act of posing. Caterina neither asked her why nor wherefore. In Lucia’s presence she was under the spell that fantastic divagations sometimes exercise over calm reasonable beings.
“Caterina, I have begun to visit the poor in their homes. It is an interesting humanitarian occupation. It is the source of the sweetest emotion. Will you come with me?”
“I will ask Andrea.”