human
Nothing but a bore. I don't employ high-sounding words, you see. I speak the plain truth. You're a bore.
gpt
You flatter yourself that you're a woman of grand passions, he went on, after looking at his watch, and giving a little start of surprise to see how much time he had wasted here.
human
No? You flatter yourself that you're a creature of impulse, a woman with a fate, a woman destined to a tragic end; and to satisfy this notion, you complicate and embroil and muddle up your own existence, and mortally bore those who are about you. With your rhetoric, your tears, your sobs, your despair, your interminable letters, your livid face and your gray lips, you're enough to bore the very saints in heaven.
gpt
Remember all the stupidities you've committed in the past four or five years, he went on,
human
Oh, did you really love him? Thanks for the compliment; you're charming this morning. Passion, inequality of position, drama, flight into Egypt, fortunately without a child--forgive the impropriety, but it escaped me. Morelli, chancing to be a decent fellow, Morelli ran away, poor devil! and our heroine treated herself to the luxury of a mortal illness. We, Laura, I, everybody, were bored by the flight, bored by the illness. The lesson was a severe one, and most women would have been cured of their inclination towards the theatrical, as well as of their scarlet fever. But not so Anna Acquaviva. It didn't matter to her that she had risked her reputation, her honour; it didn't matter to her that she had staked the name of her family; all this only excited her imagination. And, behold, she begins her second romance, her second drama, her second tragedy, and enter upon the scene, to be bored to death, Signor Cesare Dias!
gpt
Oh, Holy Virgin, help me,
human
Dramatic love for Cesare Dias, an old man, a man who has never gone in for passion, who doesn't wish to go in for it, who is tired of all such bothersome worries. Anna Acquaviva gives herself up to an unrequited love, 'one of the most desolating experiences of the soul'--that's a phrase I found in one of your letters. Desolation, torture, spasms, despair, bitterness, these are the words which our ill-fated heroine, Anna Acquaviva, employs to depict her condition to herself and to others. And Cesare Dias, who had arranged his life in a way not to be bored and not to bore anyone, Cesare Dias, who is an entirely common and ordinary person, happy in his mediocrity, suddenly finds himself against his will dragged upon the scene as hero! He is the man of mysteries, the man who will not love or who loves another, the superior man, the neighbour of the stars. And nevertheless we find a means of boring him.
gpt
Ah, Cesare, Cesare, Cesare!
human
Imbecile ought to be added to the name of Cesare Dias. That's the title which I best deserve. Only an imbecile--and I was one for half-an-hour--could have ceded to your sentimental hysterics. I was an imbecile. But to let you die, to complete your tragedy of unrequited love----
gpt
Oh, why didn't you let me die?
human
I believe it would have been as well for many of us. What a comfort for you, dear heroine, to die consumed by an unhappy passion! Gaspara Stampa, Properzia de' Rossi, and other illustrious ladies of ancient times, with whose names you have favoured me in your letters, would have found their imitator. I'm sure you would have died blessing me.
gpt
Instead of letting you die, I went through the dismal farce of marrying you. And I assure you that I've never ceased to regret it. I regretted it the very minute after I'd made you my idiotic proposal. Ah, well, every man has his moments of inexplicable weakness, and he pays dearly for them. And marriage, alas, hasn't proved a sentimental comedy. With your pretentions to passion, to love, to mutual adoration, you've bored me even more than I expected.
human
But what, then, is marriage from your point of view?
gpt
A bothersome obligation, when a man marries a woman like you.
human
You would have preferred my sister?
gpt
Yes, I should have preferred your sister. She's not a bore. I find her extremely diverting.
human
She loved you from the beginning, she says.
gpt
A pity she didn't tell you so.
human
A pity. I assure you I should have married her.
gpt
Ah, very well.
human
Ah, Cesare, Cesare, you are right. But I loved you, I loved you, and you have deceived me with my sister.
gpt
Signora Dias, you have rather a feeble memory,
human
How do you mean?
gpt
I mean that you easily forget. We are face to face; you can't lie. Have I ever told you that I loved you?
human
No--never,
gpt
Have I ever promised to love you?
human
No--never.
gpt
Well, then, according to the laws of love, I've not deceived you, my dear Anna. My heart has never belonged to you, therefore it's not been taken from you. I promised nothing, therefore I owe you nothing.
human
It's true. You're right, Cesare,
gpt
Perhaps you will speak to me of the laws of the land. Very good; according to the law a man and wife are required to be mutually faithful. A magistrate would say that I had betrayed you. But consider a little. Make an effort of memory, Anna, and recall the agreement I proposed to you that evening at Sorrento, before committing my grand blunder. I told you that I wished to remain absolutely free, free as a bachelor; and you consented. Is it true or not true?
human
It is true. I consented.
gpt
I told you that I would tolerate no interference on your part with my relations with other women; and remember, Anna, you consented. Is that true or untrue?
human
It is true,
gpt
You see, therefore, that neither according to the laws of love nor according to the laws of marriage have I betrayed you. And if you had a conscience, to adopt your own phraseology, if you had the least loyalty, you would at once confess that I have not betrayed you. You accepted the whole bargain. I am free in heart, and at liberty to do as I like. I have not betrayed you. Confess it.
human
Cesare, Cesare, be human, be Christian; don't require me to say that.
gpt
Tragedies are one thing, and truth is another, Anna. I desire to establish the fact that I haven't betrayed you, my dear. For what I did last night, for what I may have done on any other night, for what I may do any night in the future, I have your own permission. Confess it.
human
I can't say that, do you understand? she cried.
gpt
Oh, you are always in the right; you always know how to put yourself in the right. You are right in your selfishness, in your perfidy, in your wickedness, in your frightful corruption; you were right in proposing that disgraceful bargain to me, which I was not ashamed to accept, and which you to-day so justly and so appropriately remind me of. But I believed that to love, to adore a man as I loved and adored you, would be a charm to conquer with; and I have lost. For you are stronger than I; indifference is stronger than love; selfishness is stronger than passion. Generous abandonment cannot overcome the refined calculation of a corrupt man. I am wrong, I alone, I confess it--since I loved you to the point of dying for you, since I imagined that that was enough, since I had in my soul the divine hope of winning you by my love. I am wrong, I confess it; yes, I confess it. I cannot love nor hate nor live. I am nothing but a bore, a superfluous person, and a tiresome; it is true; it is true. Say it again.
human
If you wish it, I will.
gpt
You are right. You are always right. I have done nothing but blunder. I have always obeyed the mad impulses of my heart. I fled from my home. I ought not to have loved you, and I loved you. I loved you; I have bored you; and I myself, of my free will, gave you permission to betray me. You are the most vicious man I know. You're unredeemed by a thought or a feeling. You horrify me. Under the same roof with your wife, you have committed an odious sin--a sin that would make the worst men shudder. And I can't punish you, because I consented to it; because I debased the dignity of my love before you; because indeed I am a cowardly and infamous creature. See how right you are! You have sinned, but so far as I am concerned you are innocent. I am infamous and cowardly, because I ought to have died rather than accept that loathsome bargain. Forgive me if I have upbraided you. I'll ask Laura's pardon too. No human being is soiled with an infamy so great as mine. Forgive me.