Her thin, witty, and malicious lips bespoke all the rancour and perverse anger stored in the heart of this uncomely creature, whom the thought of her uncomeliness enraged.

However, the one whom she most hated in the whole world was her own mother, that _amorosa_ who was so little fitted to be a mother, who had never loved her, never paid attention to her, but had abandoned her to the care of servants from her very infancy.

In this wise real hatred had grown up between the two women, mute and frigid on the one side, and active and passionate on the other.

The daughter hated her mother because she found her beautiful, because she had not been created in the same image: beautiful with the beauty with which her mother crushed her.

Day by day she suffered at being sought by none, at realising that the adoration of one and all still went to her mother.