QUOTE : His mother watched him, and said nothing. So she had watched Guide for thirty years. Often at her housework or at night, lying awake in autumn darkness, she thought of the merry child, the awkward, gallant boy, and the man she had seen him—barely seen him—becoming. It had not been this man; this somber, restless, silent man, this second Guide—yet not like Guide as she had first known him, for Guide as a young man had rejoiced in his work, and had suffered no defeat. In Eleonora’s heart those October nights was the same bitter resentment against the world that offers so vast a chance to the young spirit and, when it comes to the point, gives so narrow a lot; the same scorn and resentment that her daughter had felt, that Piera had felt, and that she recognised in them, but with little hope for them and none for herself.