"
"You should have appealed to Cupid!" said the cardinal, laughing. "In
such a case aid could come only from the god of ancient Rome, not of the
modern!"
The old man noticed not his words. Wholly absorbed in his reminiscences,
he listened only to the voice of his own breast, saw only the form of
the beautiful woman he had once so dearly loved!
"God listened not to my fervent prayers," he continued, with a sigh, "or
perhaps my stormily beating heart heard not the voice of God, because I
listened only to her; because with intoxicated senses I was listening
to the modest, childishly pure confession which she, kneeling in the
confessional, was whispering in my ears; because I felt her breath
upon my cheeks and in every trembling nerve of my being. And one day,
overcome by his glowing passion, the monk so far forgot his sworn duty
as to confess his immodest and insane love for the wife of another man!"
"Ah, she was, then, married?" remarked the cardinal.
"Yes, she was married; sold by her own parents, sacrificed at the shrine
of mammon, married to a man whom she did not and could not love, and who
pursued her with an insane jealousy. Ah, she suffered and suffered with
the uncomplaining calmness of an angel.
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