"Anania, be yourself, be kind to yourself and to me. Be a _man_! No, I don't bid you abandon your mother if she's weak and unhappy (though she abandoned you). We can help her, give her some money, but we must keep her at arm's length. I won't have her coming between us and upsetting our life. I won't. You see I don't deceive you, Anania. I can't in the most distant way admit the possibility of living with her. It would be hideous, a daily tragedy. Better to die once for all, and have done with it, than die daily of resentment and disgust. I might pity the wretched creature, but I should never love her. If you persist in this mad idea, you'll make me loathe her even worse than before. This is my last word; aid her, but keep her far away, so that I may never lay eyes on her, so that our world in which we live may ignore her existence. "I daresay she'll prefer to be out of your sight. Your presence ought to mean to her continual remorse. You say she has grown old with grief and privation, that she's poor and ill. Well, it's all her own fault. It's much better for you and for herself that she should be like that; for then she can't go roaming about the world and inflicting more disgrace upon you. But she, who didn't hesitate to outrage you when she was young and strong, mustn't now make a weapon of her weakness and want to destroy your happiness. No! no! you must never permit such a thing. No, no, it's impossible you should act upon such a fatal aberration! Unless it is that you don't love me any longer, and seek an excuse to----But I am not going to doubt you and your loyalty and your love. Don't be so wicked and cruel to me, when I have sacrificed to you all my youth, and all my dreams, and all my future. "There! I tell you I'm crying as I write. Remember our love, our first kiss, our oaths, our plans--all--all. Don't reduce all that to a handful of ashes; don't kill me with disappointments, don't act so that afterwards you will repent your madness. If you won't listen to me, consult any sensible persons, and they'll all tell you not to be ungrateful and wicked and vain-glorious. "Why, only yesterday you told me you had called my name from the summit of the Gennargentu, and proclaimed your love eternal and superior to all other human passion! Were you lying? and only yesterday? Why do you treat me like this? What have I done to deserve it? Have you forgotten that I love you? Have you forgotten that evening when I stood at the window and you threw me a flower after kissing it? I keep that flower to sew it into my wedding-dress, and I say _keep_, because I am sure that you really are going to be my bridegroom, and that you don't intend to kill your Margherita (remember your sonnet), and that we are going to be so happy alone together in our own little house. "It is I, who am waiting for a word of hope from you at once. Tell me it's all a horrid dream. Tell me you have recovered your reason, and are sorry for having made me suffer.