"I mean it for kindness, for I want to put you on your guard." "I shall be on my guard now. My poor people have suffered sufficiently to be on the alert. And I have long thought I should like to winter at Naples. Now I have a sufficient reason for going." "The sooner the better. Giulia, how you surprised me just now by what you said! How can one so good, so blameless as you are, be afraid of death? You have never done anything wrong. I cannot conceive you ever to have offended God, even in thought. Can _you_, then, be afraid to meet Him?" "Ah! I am always shy of strangers; and, to me, God is such a stranger!--" "But you _believe_ in Him, do not you? You believe that He _is_?" "Of course! But that is so little!" The Cardinal looked as if he thought it a good deal. "Your nerves are weak," said he, after a pause. "Your organisation is too delicate. I should advise you to dwell as little as you can on these things." "Oh, I speak of them to _no_ one. I don't know how I came to do so now. Only, I suppose, because you are a friend and a churchman." "I _like_ you so to speak. Say on." "Why, then, I will add that, apart from this fear of death, which sometimes thrills me, and especially did so last night, is a far more permanent feeling--a desire for some higher good. An intense dissatisfaction with myself and with all the things of this life." "Do you really suppose that that feeling is peculiar to yourself? Everybody has it!--everybody who thinks and feels. I myself suffer martyrdom from it." "Can you--a churchman--prescribe its remedy?" "There are two ways," said the Cardinal, after a pause, "in which you may overcome it. In the first case, you must fast, you must pray, you must keep painful vigils, you must perform pilgrimages barefoot, you must deny yourself every innocent enjoyment, you must bestow all your possessions on the Church--" "Hold, hold, I can never do all that," interrupted the Duchess. "Tell me some other way, I beseech you, of remedying the weariness of life and the fear of death." "The only other way," said he, hurriedly, "is to take the world as you find it; enjoy the passing hour, indulge every innocent desire, and--let come what may." "Is there no other course?" "None, Giulia, none! There is no middle path.[5] You must choose for yourself." [5] Non c' è mezzo termine. "Of course I know which I ought to choose," said she, sorrowfully. "But to give up _all_--and to the Church!--ah! this Church must have charms for you that she has not for me!" "I am not very deeply in love with her," said the Cardinal, attentively regarding his nails. "But my part is taken and I will play it out. Come, shall we talk of something pleasanter?" "Yes, and, some of these days, I will try this better way you point out--this watching, this fasting; only I know beforehand, I shall not carry it out." "No good in trying then." "I am afraid you are right. I so dread the world's laugh! And I so dislike doing what is disagreeable!"