It was as if he held up a mirror—an intelligent and informing mirror—in which my deeds were reflected by the light of his own deep knowledge. He showed me the gradual seduction to which I had been subjected; he showed me Giuliana as she really was, as she must be from what I had told him; he reminded me that she was older by ten years than I, and greatly skilled in men and worldliness; that where I had gone blindly, never seeing what was the inevitable goal and end of the road I trod, she had consciously been leading me thither, knowing full well what the end must be, and desiring it.
As for the murder of Fifanti, the thing was grievous; but it had been done in the heat of combat, and he could not think that I had meant the poor man's death. And Fifanti himself was not entirely without blame. Largely had he contributed to the tragedy. There had been evil in his heart. A good man would have withdrawn his wife from surroundings which he knew to be perilous and foul, not used her as a decoy to enable him to trap and slay his enemy.
And the greatest blame of all he attached to that Messer Arcolano who had recommended Fifanti to my mother as a tutor for me, knowing full well—as he must have known—what manner of house the doctor kept and what manner of wanton was Giuliana. Arcolano had sought to serve Fifanti's interests in pretending to serve mine and my mother's; and my mother should be enlightened that at last she might know that evil man for what he really was.
“But all this,” he concluded, “does not mean, Agostino, that you are to regard yourself as other than a great sinner. You have sinned monstrously, even when all these extenuations are considered.”
“I know, I know!” I groaned.
“But beyond forgiveness no man has ever sinned, nor have you now. So that your repentance is deep and real, and when by some penance that I shall impose you shall have cleansed yourself of all this mire that clings to your poor soul, you shall have absolution from me.”
“Impose your penance,” I cried eagerly. “There is none I will not undertake, to purchase pardon and some little peace of mind.
“I will consider it,” he answered gravely. “And now let us seek your mother. She must be told, for a great deal hangs upon this, Agostino. The career to which you were destined is no longer for you, my son.”
My spirit quailed under those last words; and yet I felt an immense relief at the same time, as if some overwhelming burden had been lifted from me.
“I am indeed unworthy,” I said.