"What motive have you, Lucia, for being anxious to know the person that
gives me so much happiness? You care for me, don't you? What feelings
should one cherish toward some one who makes a beloved person happy and
does him good beyond measure?"
Lucia laughed, a short, scornful laugh of contempt. She glanced at me
swiftly and furtively.
"Come, Vico, make an end now with these miserable sophisms. I always
thought that you were better than other men. But I knew that this was
hanging over my head just as it threatens every woman. That you
disappoint me so now, you, that is terrible enough. But don't make it
worse by foolish self-deception of this sort and by childish nonsense,
as though I ought to be thankful to her who has destroyed my domestic
happiness. That only makes you sink still deeper in my esteem."
Only then I really felt the absolute impossibility of what I had
attempted. But I did not regret it and I resolved resolutely to
persist. It was essential to the clearing of my life from falsehood at
which I had so hopefully begun.
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