we laughed at it and became friends. Yet I could have been offended. And also D.M. she might be offended if she knew. Especially since he has not confirmed or denied that she was the capricious girl."
"We agree on all this. "Aunt Emma said sipping her wine." But a story is not a novel. A whole romance of love."
"And Fogazzaro, then? Hasn't he set up an entire love novel on the figure of Aunt Yole? And yet no one in the family has ever been scandalized."
"Jeanne appears to you as a delicate, romantic, superior being, as in reality Aunt Yole was." Aunt Laura observed. "Everything is highly spiritual, in Little Modern World."
"Modern... from other times." I observed nibbling on a breadstick. "Can you imagine Colonel Cantwell of the US infantry who agrees with Renata for the Praglia Monastery and Renata who murmurs: "...if you have a bad imagination, I feel that I would purify your soul, better me than fasting and prayers in the desert..." and then she even falls unconscious, because of her 'lofty feelings?'"
"We are not so old that we do not understand that the way we feel and write has changed." said Aunt Emma passing some ham to Aunt Laura.
"You see dear, we have the impression that your friend has a little lack of delicacy in his book." smiled Aunt Laura.
"And your Antonio Fogazzaro has perhaps shown delicacy in making Jeanne Dessalle, aka Aunt Yole say: "...I want nothing but affection and tenderness, the rest disgusts me. It will be my cold nature, it will be pride, it will be the horrible months that I spent with an unclean husband..." An unclean husband, a good way to liquidate Uncle Vittorio who, from what I have heard in the family, was a very good person and a devoted husband. And also quite patient,...
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