ABSTRACT
This chapter reproduces the text from Chapter IX of Ada Reis, Volume II. He who with open force and by desperate deeds obtains the object of his guilty wishes does not harm his victim to the same degree as he, who, by consummate art and flattery, seduces a reluctant mind, and corrupts the purity of the soul. Fiormonda’s mind was perverted, and she resigned herself to her love more than to her grief. Under adverse and mortifying circumstances, the hand, which Fiormonda had refused to the young and ardent Montevallos, she began to entertain the idea of bestowing upon the Marquis de Santa Spina, who was destined by the general voice to be the succeeding viceroy of Peru.
