Indifferent as a madonna, the Novella watched him weep.
Then, without transition, he felt in his soul the rage that dismissed lovers feel.
"What have I done to you? Do you find that I did not love you with a sufficiently insatiable love? Come, you know well that I belong to you: do you recall the pact? Do you wish me to call you perjurer? Are you a woman, after all? Woman, but madonna, and I have no insults metaphysical enough to injure you. Yet, do not abuse your virginity, you will force yourself to say disagreeable things. Well, we are going to come to terms: take me as an orphan. Afterwards, we shall see."
Indifferent as a madonna, the Novella still watched him.
"Ah!" Guido thought, "she is inflexible. Her heart is an eternal decree. I rail at her who was before Time, how stupid! And I sink into blasphemous sarcasms which her son one day will charge me with. Passion leads me into error, but passion above all else!"
"Novella! adored madonna, listen to me. There have been times when you were more clement. I implore you, speak to me, give me a smile. No? Nothing? Ah! I am deserted! Think—I have but you. The white town straggling under your divine feet, the blue sea, your immortally dying sister, the firmament less pure than your inviolate soul, the roses which are the perfume of your most chaste thought, all that is charming in nature, I love as your emanation, as a perpetual Month of Mary. Ah! I shall recite to you the rosary of my griefs, and in the end I shall crucify myself to please you! You should at least be grateful for my reserve: was I not proper when you came to see me? Yet, you loved me that day, and what if I had really insisted, O permanent Virgin?...
"How beautiful you are! Ah! wonder-working beauty, sacred beauty! Ah! it is not in vain that the Infinite has dwelt in your bosom: your smile is impregnated with it forever. But you no longer wish to smile....
"Comfort me, through pity, since it is written in your anthems. Are you now going to encourage scepticism? If you truly are the consoler of afflicted souls, prove it, for I am full of affliction. Yes, I feel that it is a wretched reasoning: you do what you wish and your auxilliary grace has devolved only on those of good will. I reason too much. It is not thus that one touches the heart of a woman, O woman of women, am I not right?
"Yet I would like, before dying, once again to recall this to you: 'Recollect that you have never been implored in vain!' If you have no condescension for my love, have some for my madness. Do you not perceive that I ramble incoherently, and to what point. What would you, it is thus when one loves!
"So, we are going to separate....