The conception of such an action, the
manner in which it had been carried out, would be in harmony with his
innate mysticism, with the predominance in him of imagination over
reason, with his intellectual physiognomy. Three years had passed since
the day at Vena di Fonte Alta, when Jeanne in despair had sworn to
herself to love Piero no longer, feeling that henceforward she could
love nothing else in the world. Nevertheless she always loved him;
still, as in the past, she judged him with her intellect independent
of her heart, an independence dear to her pride. She judged him with
severity in all his actions, all his attitudes, from the moment when he
had conquered her by sheer strength in the monastery of Praglia to the
moment when their lips had met near the basin of the Acqua Barbarena.
He had shown himself incapable of loving, incapable of decisive action,
irresolute, effeminate in the instability of his mind. Yes, he had been
effeminate until the last; effeminate, unfit to form any virile judgment
of his own hysterical mysticism. In this judgment there was perhaps an
imperfect sincerity, an excess of bitterness, a futile act of rebellion
against this all-powerful, invincible love.
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