Leonarda monologue (Act 5) — Three Comedies

I want time. I want not to lose the self-control I have won for myself by years of renunciation and self-sacrifice, and was so proud of. But it won't obey me when you speak to me. Your words possess me in spite of myself. If there is any happiness on earth, it is to find one's every thought faultlessly understood. But that happiness brings a pain with it--for me, at any rate. No, don't answer! You are too strong for me; because I love you--love you as only one can who has never believed such joy could exist or could possibly come to her--and now the depths of my peace are troubled with the thought that it is treachery to my child.