I am no longer on a footing of equality with the highest rank of
women; and the more attentions are paid to me, the more my
inferiority is made apparent.
Gennaro could not comprehend this sensitiveness; but he has been
so happy that it would ill become me not to have sacrificed my
petty vanity to that great and noble thing,--the life of an
artist. We women live by love, whereas men live by love and
action; otherwise they would not be men. Still, there are great
disadvantages for a woman in the position in which I have put
myself. You have escaped them; you continue to be a person in the
eyes of the world, which has no rights over you; you have your own
free will, and I have lost mine. I am speaking now of the things
of the heart, not those of social life, which I have utterly
renounced. You can be coquettish and self-willed, and have all the
graces of a woman who loves, a woman who can give or refuse her
love as she pleases; you have kept the right to have caprices, in
the interests even of your love. In short, to-day you still
possess your right of feeling, while I, I have no longer any
liberty of heart, which I think precious to exercise in love, even
though the love itself may be eternal.
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