Veronica Franco: I confess that as a young girl I loved a man who would not marry me for want of a dowry. I confess I had a mother who taught me a different way of life, one I resisted at first but learned to embrace. I confess I became a courtesan, traded yearning for power, welcomed many rather than be owned by one. I confess I embraced a whore's freedom over a wife's obedience. I confess I find more ecstacy in passion than in prayer. Such passion is prayer. I confess I pray still to feel the touch of my lover's lips. His hands upon me, his arms enfolding me... Such surrender has been mine. I confess I pray still to be filled and enflamed. To melt into the dream of us, beyond this troubled place, to where we are not even ourselves. To know that always, this is mine. If this had not been mine-if I had lived any other way-a child to her husband's will, my soul hardened from lack of touch and lack of love... I confess such endless days and nights would be a punishment far greater than you could ever mete out. You, all of you, you who hunger so for what I give yet cannot bear to see that kind of power in a woman. You call God's greatest gift-ourselves, our yearning, our need to love-you call it filth and sin and heresy... I repent there was no other way open to me. I do not repent my life.
Servius Augustus Cyriacus: A poet once wrote "I was with my Lord in the highest sphere, on the fall of Lucifer into the depth of hell. I know the names of the stars from north to south. I was at the place of the crucifixion of the merciful Son of God. I am a wonder whose origin is unknown. I have suffered hunger for the Son of the Virgin. I have been fostered in the land of the Deity. I have been teacher to all intelligences. And I shall be, until the day of doom, on the face of the earth."
Sarah Pierce: I think I understand your feelings about this book. I used to have some problems with it, myself. When I read it in grad school, Madam Bovary just seemed like a fool. She marries the wrong man; makes one foolish mistake after another; but when I read it this time, I just fell in love with her. She's trapped! She has a choice: she can either accept a life of misery or she can struggle against it. And she chooses to struggle. Mary Ann: Some struggle. Hop into bed with every guy who says hello. Sarah Pierce: She fails in the end, but there's something beautiful and even heroic in her rebellion. My professors would kill me for even thinking this, but in her own strange way, Emma Bovary is a feminist. Mary Ann: Oh, that's nice. So now cheating on your husband makes you a feminist? Sarah Pierce: No, no, it's not the cheating. It's the hunger. The hunger for an alternative, and the refusal to accept a life of unhappiness. Mary Ann: Maybe I didn't understand the book!
Veronica Franco: You... all of you... you who hunger so for what I give, but cannot bear to see such power in a woman. You call God's greatest gift... ourselves, our yearning, our need to love... you call it filth and sin and heresy.
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