‘Listen to me, my dear, my beloved Valentine,’ he said in his low, melodious voice. ‘People like us, who have never had a thought that would have made them blush before others, before their parents or before God, people like us can read one another’s hearts like an open book. I have never been a character in a novel, I am not a melancholy hero, I have no pretensions to be Manfred or Antony.2 But without words, without oaths and protestations, I entrusted my life to you.
