And now, at the
sudden thought that occurred to me, I fell a prey to an insensate jealousy
touching the woman whom I had lately loathed as the cause of my downfall.
0, the inconstancy of the human heart, and the eternal battles in such poor
natures as mine between the knowledge of right and the desire for wrong!
It was in vain that I sought to turn my thoughts to other things; in vain
that I cast them back upon my recent condition and my recent resolves; in
vain that I remembered the penitence of yestermorn, the confession at Fra
Gervasio's knee, and the strong resolve to do penance and make amends by
the purity of all my after-life. Vain was it all.
I turned my mule about, and still wrestling with my conscience, choking it,
I rode down the hill again, and back across the bridge, and then away to
the south, to follow Messer Gambara and set an end to doubt.
I must know. I must! It was no matter that conscience told me that here
was no affair of mine; that Giuliana belonged to the past from which I was
divorced, the past for which I must atone and seek forgiveness. I must
know. And so I rode along the dusty highway in pursuit of Messer Gambara,
who was proceeding, I imagined, to join the Duke at Parma.
I had no difficulty in following them. A question here, and a question
there, accompanied by a description of the party, was all that was
necessary to keep me on their track.
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