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Updated: June 13, 2025
It was not, either, that he felt indignant at the doubt cast, even hypothetically, on the purity of his Paolina's love. It was rather the unreasoning animal anger against the person who had given him pain. It was a stab to his heart, this germ of a doubt thus placed there for the first time. He was conscious of the pang, and resented it.
Apollinare, as well as the precise nature of the connection which had existed between him and Paolina's parents, can be only matter of conjecture. Paolina, as has been said, pursued her path slowly. She had tripped along much more lightly on her way from the city to St. Apollinare.
The chapel in question is a private one, and is accessible only by passing through a portion of the Cardinal's residence. At San Vitale Ludovico needed to take nobody into his confidence, when he climbed to Paolina's scaffolding to be by her side while she worked, save the old sacristan.
Might possibly the something take the shape of a change or mitigation of Paolina's resolve? No sooner did the idea cross his mind than he felt ashamed of it, and his heart smote him for having for a moment harboured a thought that involved falseness to his promise to her. Nevertheless, it was not the last time that the thought recurred. The next morning he met his uncle.
The meaning was, that Paolina's own heart, during those hours of reverie filled with the meditation of her love, during those pourings forth of her confessions of love to her heavenly confidant in her bedside prayers; during her nightly review of the love- passages of the day, her own heart, as it became clearer to her, had revealed to her, that she could not accede to any such proposal as that which, she was well persuaded, the Marchese could alone offer to her; had revealed it to her, not in obedience to any moral principle; not by any what-do-you-take-me-for process of indignant virtue; but by an instinctive feeling irresistible and not to be gainsayed, that the love she had to bestow must possess its object wholly and entirely, or not at all.
In any case no such monstrous idea, as you would infer from it, ever entered into my mind. You know how anxious I was about Paolina's prolonged absence. I was thinking of her; at least, I suppose so, if, indeed, I uttered her name. I have no recollection. I don't know why I should have done so.
Old Orsola did not know exactly at what time to expect Paolina back; but she knew that Paolina's purpose on that Ash Wednesday morning was merely to walk to the church, and, having seen the preparations that had been made for her work, to return, without on that occasion remaining to begin her task.
Nevertheless he felt, somewhat more strongly and clearly, perhaps, than while he had been looking into Paolina's eyes, that he had undertaken rather a tremendous task in declaring that he would break off the projected marriage with the Lady Violante, the great-niece of the Cardinal, a match which both families considered to be definitively arranged, and which was expected and looked forward to by all Ravenna, and that for the purpose and with the view of making so terrible a mesalliance as that he contemplated.
It was rather the nature of Paolina's own motives for her expedition, as they were patent to the old monk, that disquieted him on her behalf. He had marked the expression of her face when she had seen the bagarino with Ludovico and his companion pass along the road towards the forest, and the change in her whole manner after that.
It was the natural thing then, the thing a priori to be expected, that a girl in Paolina's position should be so influenced. Ludovico would fain have questioned and cross-questioned La Bianca, his experienced monitress, a little more on this point. Yes, to be expected a priori. But when one knew Paolina; when one knew her as he knew her, was it not impossible?
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