After the Divorce Quotes

“It was true that he still loved Giovanna, but it was a very different kind of love from that which she had formerly inspired in him. Now, there was more of passion, perhaps, but it did not go so deep, and he knew, though he could not tell her so, that even were she free to return to him as his wife, he could never be happy again as in the old days. She was not the woman to whom he had given his heart, but another and a very different person. One who, having been false to both husbands in succession, was now, perhaps, deceiving them simultaneously.”
― Grazia Deledda, After the Divorce

“A habit of dissembling, a result of prison life, had clung to him; so that now he found it impossible to be really open with anyone, much as he sometimes longed to unburden his heart; while the constant effort to conceal his feelings harassed him and added to his general misery”
― Grazia Deledda, After the Divorce

“And yet—and yet—never in all those years of imprisonment had he experienced a sense of such utter hopelessness as that with which he now saw the shadows fall from those free skies. He was pressing on, but whither? and why? He had set forth eager, elated, as one hastening to a place where pleasant things await him. Now he wondered at himself. In the uncertain twilight he seemed to have lost his way; his journey had turned out to be vain, abortive. He was trudging on aimlessly; he had no country, nor home, nor family; he would never reach any destination;”
― Grazia Deledda, After the Divorce

“And then, after all, I am just a creature of flesh and blood, like everyone else; I am poor and exposed to sin and temptation, and in order to save myself from these I am taking the position which God has provided for me. Yes, my dear Aunt Porredda, I do remember eternity, and it is to save my soul that I am doing what I am doing—no, I am not bad; I have not a bad heart.” And so she very nearly persuaded herself that her heart not only was not bad, but that it was quite good and noble; at least, if this was not the conviction of that innermost depth of conscience, that depth which refused to lie, and from whence had issued the disturbing veil of sadness that hung over her, it was of her outer and more practical mind, and at last, quite comforted, she fell asleep.”
― Grazia Deledda, After the Divorce

“What is marriage, after all? It is a contract made between men, and binding only in the sight of men. The religious ceremony really means nothing at all—” “It is a sacrament!” cried Aunt Porredda, beside herself. “Means nothing at all,” continued Paolo. “Just as some day the civil ceremony will mean nothing at all.”
― Grazia Deledda, After the Divorce