“I did not know, Ludovico, that you were a prude. To see you looking at the girls⁠ ⁠… What has become of your pagan single-mindedness? I continue: the bed is the place of intercourse between the wooing and the wooed: symbolically, it typifies devotional retirement from the world for the purpose of contact with God.”

“Fie! Andate, andate! ” the Italian fended him off, in a voice almost tearful. They all laughed. But Settembrini went on, with dignity: “No, no, I am a European, an Occidental, whereas the order of progress you describe is purely Eastern. The Orient abhors activity. Lao-Tse taught that inaction is more profitable than anything else between heaven and earth. When all mankind shall have ceased to do anything whatever, then only will perfect repose and bliss reign upon this earth. There you have your intercourse with God.”