This singular woman attracts
irresistibly, and at the same time repulses. I have said that beyond
beauty there is nothing else; for even her uncommon intelligence is
only the humble slave kneeling at the feet of her own beauty. Not more
than a week ago I saw Laura giving money to a child whose father had
been drowned recently, and I thought to myself: "She would put the
child's eyes out in the same way, gracefully and sweetly, if she
thought it would add to her beauty." One feels these things, and one
may lose one's head over a woman like that, but it is impossible to
like her. And she who understands so many things does not understand
this.
Yet how beautiful she is! A few days ago, when she came down the steps
leading into the garden, swaying lightly on those magnificent hips,
"I thought I should drop," as the poet Slowacki says. Decidedly I
am under the sway of two powers,--the one attracting, the other
repelling. I want to go to Switzerland, and I want to go back to Rome.
I do not know how it will end. Ribot rightly says that a desire to do
a thing is only a consciousness, not an act of volition; still less is
it an act of volition to have a twofold desire. I received a letter
from my lawyer, who wants to see me about the affairs of the
succession; these are mere formalities, and they could arrange things
without me, did I feel disinclined to move.
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