I have always been more quickly moved to good or evil by kindness than by severity, for by nature I am diffident to excess. Father Carnesecchi had found out that trait in my character, and proved me plastic under his delicate fingers. He did not refuse me the sacrament; he absolved me and comforted me greatly. It did not become me to be obstinate to one who gave me so much. He undertook to accord the differences between Aurelia and her husband, if I on my part would give my word that no act of mine should endanger their future happiness. If I would bind myself here, he thought, there would be no harm in my seeing her, but he insisted that this should not be done without his express sanction. He said, "You are one of those young men of your nation--one of many, I conceive--who come into this country with your minds already made up as to what you will see. Because you are romantic, you see us so; because you are mystically inclined, you believe us to be a race of seers; because you are complex natures, you complicate ours. Because our beauty is strange to you, you think us strangely beautiful. Alas! my dear young friend, you have yet to learn your Italians. There is no such Italy, least of all Tuscany, as you profess to have read of in Donna Aurelia's simple soul. I don't know the young lady, but I know her kind. She is undoubtedly a good-hearted, shrewd little housewife, careful of her reputation and honestly proud of it. She will make, I expect, a first-rate, if too fond, mother. You, of course, try to make a Beatrice of her, quite regardless of the possibility that you are not a Dante, or even a Diotima (which, thank Heaven, she is not yet), not remembering how far you are from being a Socrates. My dear young man, I shall not forbid you her society-- subject, of course, to her own and her husband's judgment, which, I promise you, I shall obtain beforehand. Seek it then by all means, but seek it with circumspection. Remember that she will not thrive upon the fine poetry you will make of her--nor will you, indeed; but that is your own affair. Seek her, therefore, with reasonable care for her future. In two words, write to her husband, and for once deprive yourself of your luxurious mysteries, and go to work in the light of day. As for your Virginia--you have a fondness for female society, I fancy--don't trouble your head further with that little parasite."