"At last! Ever since you left I have been longing for you to
touch upon this question. How did I explain myself that night,
in my painful emotion? How did you understand me, in your
equally painful emotion? For months and months I have felt the
necessity of speaking of this to you, and I have never done so
because I lacked courage.

"You will remember you accused me of pride that night. I
implore you to believe that I am not proud. I cannot even
understand such an accusation.

"Your letter gives me the idea that you think I have returned
to a belief in God. But did I ever tell you that I do not
believe in God? I cannot have told you so, for the whole
history of my opinions is engraved upon my mind, and the
fright, the distressing thought that I might perhaps no longer
be able to believe in God, came to me after you left. I know
the day, the very hour. At S. Mamette I had heard them talking
of a great dinner your grandmother had given at Brescia, while
I could not even procure the food and wine necessary for the
diet the doctor--fearing the loss of the right eye--had
prescribed for our beloved Uncle. I struggled against these
awful shadows, Franco, and I conquered. It is true the victory
is due, in a great measure, to Maria. I mean that if all these
black clouds hide the existence of Supreme Justice from me, a
ray of light from it reaches me through Maria; and this ray of
light makes me believe, makes me hope in the Orb. For it would
be too horrible if the universe were not governed by justice!

"That night then, I can only have told you that I understood
religion in a different way from you; that prayers and acts of
Christian faith did not seem to me essential to the religious
idea, but rather love and actions for those who suffer, rather
indignation and actions against those who cause suffering!

"And you wish to resume your silence? No, you must not. You
feel weak, you say. Do you feel you yourself are weak, or your
_Credo_? Let us reason, let us discuss. Confess that one reason
why you who believe, love your beliefs, is because they are
comfortably restful to the intellect. You stretch yourselves at
your ease in them as in a hammock, suspended in the air by
innumerable threads spun by men and fastened by men to many
hooks. Yo