The correspondence between Turin and Oria did not indeed reflect the true state of mind of Franco and Luisa; it ran on smoothly and affectionately enough, but with great caution and reserve on either side. Luisa had expected that Franco would answer her note, and resume the great discussion. As he never mentioned either the note or what had passed between them that last night, she risked an allusion. It was allowed to pass unheeded. As a matter of fact Franco had several times started to write with the intention of confuting his wife's opinions. Before beginning he always felt himself strong, and was convinced that with a little thought he could easily discover crushing arguments, and, indeed, arguments he believed to be such would rush to his pen, but when they were set down in writing, he would at once be forced to recognise their inadequacy. Though surprised and grieved he would make another attempt, but always with the same result. Nevertheless his wife was certainly in error; this he never for a moment doubted, and there must be a way of demonstrating it to her. He must study. But what, and how? He consulted a priest to whom he had been to confession soon after his arrival in Turin. This priest, a little misshapen old man, who was fiery and very learned, invited him to his house in Piazza Paisana, and began to help him enthusiastically, suggesting a number of books, some for his own perusal, and others to be sent to his wife. He was a learned Orientalist, and an enthusiastic Thomist, and had taken a great fancy to Franco, of whose genius and culture he had formed an opinion which was perhaps exaggeratedly favourable. At one time he was on the point of proposing to him the study of Hebrew, and indeed insisted upon his reading St. Thomas. He went so far as to sketch for Franco the outlines of a letter to his wife, with a list of the arguments he must expound. Franco had at once fallen in love with the enthusiastic little old man, who, moreover, had the pure expression of a saint. He began to study St. Thomas with great ardour, but did not persevere long. He felt he was embarking upon a sea without beginning and without end, across which he was unable to steer a straight course. The scholastic scheme of treatment, that sameness in the form of argument for and against, that icy Latin, dense with profound thought, and colourless on the surface, had successfully routed all his good intentions at the end of three days. Of the arguments contained in the sketch for the letter he understood only a small part. He got the priest to explain them to him, understood somewhat better, and prepared to open a campaign with them, but found himself as much encumbered by them as was David by the armour of Saul. They weighed upon him, he could not handle them, he felt they were not his own and never would be. No, he could not present himself before his wife with Professor G.'s priestly hat and tunic, a theological lance in his hand, and entrenched behind a shield of metaphysics. He recognised that he was not born to philosophise in any way; he was destitute of the very power of strictly logical reasoning, for indeed his glowing heart, rich in tenderness and indignation, would too often interfere, speaking for or against, according to its own passions. One evening at Casa C. he was playing the _andante_ of Beethoven's twenty-eighth sonata, when, with quivering nerves and flashing eyes, he said in a low tone: "Ah! This, this, this!" He was reflecting that no theologian, no doctor, could communicate the religious sentiment as Beethoven does. As he played on he put his whole soul into the music, and longed for Luisa's presence that he might play this divine _andante_ to her, that he might unite himself to her, praying thus in an ineffable spasm of the spirit. But he did not reflect that Luisa who, moreover, was far less sensitive to music than he was, would probably have attributed another meaning to the _andante_, that of the painful conflict between our affections and our convictions.