I
must not damn my soul for anything that my mother had vowed or ever I was
born, however much she might account that it would be no more than filial
piety so to do.
I was easier in mind after my resolve was taken, and I allowed that mind of
mine to stray thereafter as it listed. It took to thoughts of Giuliana--
Giuliana for whom I ached in every nerve, although I still sought to
conceal from myself the true cause of my suffering. Better a thousand
times had I envisaged that sinful fact and wrestled with it boldly. Thus
should I have had a chance of conquering myself and winning clear of all
the horror that lay before me.
That I was weak and irresolute at such a time, when I most needed strength,
I still think to-day--when I can take a calm survey of all--was the fault
of the outrageous rearing that was mine. At Mondolfo they had so nurtured
me and so sheltered me from the stinging blasts of the world that I was
grown into a very ripe and succulent fruit for the Devil's mouth. The
things to whose temptation usage would have rendered me in some degree
immune were irresistible to one who had been tutored as had I.
Let youth know wickedness, lest when wickedness seeks a man out in his
riper years he shall be fooled and conquered by the beauteous garb in which
the Devil has the cunning to array it.
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