Paolo with his whole soul, and he had hated him all his life.  This calm, obliging brother of his stood between him and all peace of mind.  It was not the least of his grievances that he received most of his commissions through the priest who was constantly in relation with the cardinal and rich prelates who were the patrons of his art.  The sense of obligation which he felt was often almost unbearable, and he longed to throw it off.  The man whom he hated for his own sake and despised for his connection with the church, was daily in his house; at every turn he met with Paolo’s tacit disapprobation or outspoken resistance.  For a long time Paolo had doubted whether the marriage between the two young people would turn out well, and while he expressed his doubts Marzio had remained stubborn in his determination.  Latterly, and doubtless owing to the change in Gianbattista’s character, Paolo had always spoken of the marriage with favour.  This sufficed at first to rouse Marzio’s suspicions, and ultimately led to his opposing with all his might what he had so long and so vigorously defended; he resolved to be done with what he considered a sort of slavery, and at one stroke to free himself from his brother’s influence, and to assure Lucia’s future.  During several weeks he had planned the scene which had taken place that evening, waiting for his opportunity, trying to make sure of being strong enough to make it effective, and revolving the probable answers he might expect from the different persons concerned.  It had come, and he was satisfied with the result.

Marzio Pandolfi’s intelligence lacked logic.  In its place he possessed furious enthusiasm, an exaggerated estimate of the value of his social doctrines, and a whole vocabulary of terms by which to describe the ideal state after which he hankered.  But though he did not possess a logic of his own, his life was itself the logical result of the circumstances he had created.  As, in the diagram called the parallelogram of forces, various conflicting powers are seen to act at a point, producing an inevitable resultant in a fixed line, so in the plan of Marzio’s life, a number of different tendencies all acted at a centre, in his overstrained intelligence, and continued to push him in a direction he had not expected to follow, and of which even now he was far from suspecting the ultimate termination.

He had never loved his brother, but he had loved his wife with all his heart.  He had begun to love Lucia when she was a child.  He had felt a sort of admiring fondness for Gianbattista Bordogni, and a decided pride in the progress and the talent of the apprentice.  By degrees, as the prime mover, his hatred for Paolo, gained force, it had absorbed his affection for Maria Luisa, who, after eighteen years of irreproachable wifehood, seemed to Marzio to be nothing better than an accomplice and a spy of his brother’s in the domestic warfare.  Next, the lingering love for his child had been eaten up in the same way, and Marzio said to himself that the girl had joined the enemy, and was no longer worthy of his confidence.  Lastly, the change in Gianbattista’s character and ideas seemed to destroy the last link which bound the chiseller to his family.  Henceforth, his hand was against each one of his household, and he fancied that they were all banded together against himself.