Just before she had said this Francesco had opened his downcast eyes. He dared to look at Polia. He drank in her words avidly. "Ah!" he cried. "As God is my witness, my soul has no secret that does not belong to you." "Your soul has a secret," replied Polia, "a secret that besets your friends and that certain people among those you love best may find it of use to fathom. Endowed with all the advantages that augur for a happy future: youth, ingenio, knowledge and already glory, you nonetheless abandon yourself to the languor of a mysterious sadness, you are consumed by a secret care, you neglect the works on which your reputation is based, you flee from a world that seeks you out in order to hide in almost opaque solitude days that so much success should make resplendent and, finally, if the rumours that are circulating are worthy of credence, you are on the point of breaking entirely with human society and retiring to a monastery. Is what I have just said to you true?" Francesco seemed agitated by a thousand conflicting emotions. He needed a few moments to gather his strength. "Yes," he replied, "that is true. At least, all of it was true this morning. An event which has happened since has changed the course of my ideas without changing my resolutions. I will go to a monastery and my commitment is irrevocable, but I will go with a mind that is fully consoled and joyful, for my existence is complete and I cannot conceive of any other one so happy on earth that it would render me jealous. Born into obscurity and poverty, but stronger than my fate, I had only measured my unhappiness by the immensity of the void into which my heart had plunged. This void has been filled by the most delightful of hopes: you will remember me!" Polia looked at him sweetly. "I want," she said, "not to see in your words a simple game of the imagination or one of those flattering condescensions of courtesy with which people think to have repaid friendship. It seems to me that this artificial language of the cold should not be applied to us. I therefore think that I begin to grasp a fraction of the things that you have said to me, with the exception of your resolve, but," she added smiling, "I do not understand them sufficiently."