LOVE BY PROXY.
Petronio.... I tell you I’m tired of it! And it is you I complain of—you and your apathy, which poor Virginia thinks she can cure by means of the stimulus of jealousy! And I am to act the part of stimulus! But it is a part I don’t at all relish, because when you come to look into it, the stimulus, instead of acting on you, acts on me! In other words, I am falling in love—do you understand that? I am falling in love with your Virginia, my Carlo! I am becoming your rival, my good friend!—and a neglected rival, by all that’s contemptible! Because I am your friend I speak of nothing but you when I am with her;—sheaccuses, and I defend you—you idiot! She doubts you, and I keep on swearing that you adore her—blind fool!... And all this is very dangerous to my virtue. For, while it is quite true that I speak on your account, I feel my ears burning on my own. It is true that Virginia is touched by my words, because I, lying most vilely, keep telling her that they are yours. But I know well enough that they are my own words; therefore, is the look that flashes from those great eyes of hers, as she listens to them, mine or yours? I can’t tell, and the effort to find out causes such a confusion of emotions—mine, thine, his, ours, yours, everybody’s...—that my head spins round faster than Angiolina’s reel. There, you have it now!
P. Ferrari.
P. Ferrari.
P. Ferrari.
P. Ferrari.