Only Paolo misapplied this eternal truth. He should not have
given Giovanni the inferior status and a fat, mean Italian tradesman the
superior. That was false, a real falsity. Maria knew it and hated it.
But Paolo could not distinguish between the accident of riches and the
aristocracy of the spirit. So Maria rejected him altogether, and went to
the other extreme. We were all human beings like herself; naked, there
was no distinction between us, no higher nor lower. But we were
possessed of more money than she. And she had to steer her course
between these two conceptions. The money alone made the real
distinction, the separation; the being, the life made the common level.
Paolo had the curious peasant's avarice also, but it was not meanness.
It was a sort of religious conservation of his own power, his own self.
Fortunately he could leave all business transactions on our account to
Maria, so that his relation with us was purely ritualistic. He would
have given me anything, trusting implicitly that I would fulfil my own
nature as Signore, one of those more godlike, nearer the light of
perfection than himself, a peasant.
Pages:
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
141
142
143
144
145
146
147
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158