What is needed is that we both love
faithfully, persistently; at a distance from each other for years,
with no satisfaction but that of knowing that we are loved."
"Alas!" said Rodolphe, "will you not consider my fidelity as devoid of
all merit when you see me absorbed in the efforts of devouring
ambition? Do you imagine that I can wish to see you one day exchange
the fine name of Gandolphini for that of a man who is a nobody? I want
to become one of the most remarkable men of my country, to be rich,
great--that you may be as proud of my name as of your own name of
Colonna."
"I should be grieved to see you without such sentiments in your
heart," she replied, with a bewitching smile. "But do not wear
yourself out too soon in your ambitious labors. Remain young. They say
that politics soon make a man old."
One of the rarest gifts in women is a certain gaiety which does not
detract from tenderness. This combination of deep feeling with the
lightness of youth added an enchanting grace at this moment to
Francesca's charms. This is the key to her character; she laughs and
she is touched; she becomes enthusiastic, and returns to arch raillery
with a readiness, a facility, which makes her the charming and
exquisite creature she is, and for which her reputation is known
outside Italy. Under the graces of a woman she conceals vast learning,
thanks to the excessively monotonous and almost monastic life she led
in the castle of the old Colonnas.
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