's book greatly
astonished her. What! one ought to take interest in the lowly, realise
that they had the same souls and the same griefs as oneself, and seek in
brotherly or sisterly fashion to make them happy? She certainly sought to
acquire such an interest, but with no great success, for she secretly
feared that it might lead her into sin, as it could not be right to alter
aught of the social system which had been established by God and
consecrated by the Church. Charitable she undoubtedly was, wont to bestow
small sums in alms, but she did not give her heart, she felt no true
sympathy for the humble, belonging as she did to such a different race,
which looked to a throne in heaven high above the seats of all the
plebeian elect.

She and Pierre, however, found themselves on other mornings side by side
in the shade of the laurels near the trickling, singing water; and he,
lacking occupation, weary of waiting for a solution which seemed to
recede day by day, fervently strove to animate this young and beautiful
woman with some of his own fraternal feelings. He was impassioned by the
idea that he was catechising Italy herself, the queen of beauty, who was
still slumbering in ignorance, but who would recover all her past glory
if she were to awake to the new times with soul enlarged, swelling with
pity for men and things. Reading good Abbe Rose's letters to Benedetta,
he made her shudder at the frightful wail of wretchedness which ascends
from all great cities. With such deep tenderness in her eyes, with the
happiness of love reciprocated emanating from her whole being, why should
she not recognise, even as he did, that the law of love was the sole
means of saving suffering humanity, which, through hatred, incurred the
danger of death? And to please him she did try to believe in democracy,
in the fraternal remodelling of society, but among other nations
only--not at Rome, for an involuntary, gentle laugh came to her lips
whenever his words evoked the idea of the poor still remaining in the
Trastevere district fraternising with those who yet dwelt in the old
princely palaces. No, no, things had been as they were so long; they
could not, must not, be altered! And so, after all, Pierre's pupil made
little progress: she was, in reality, simply touched by the wealth of
ardent love which the young priest had chastely transferred from one
alone to the whole of human kind. And between him and her, as those
sunlit October mornings