The regent, Anna Leopoldowna, also,
had already dismissed her household and withdrawn into her private
apartments.
It was a fine starlight night. Anna leaned upon the window-frame,
thoughtfully and dreamily glancing up at the heavens. Her eyes gradually
filled with tears, which slowly rolled down her cheeks and fell upon her
hands. She was startled by the falling of these warm, glowing drops. She
was thinking of Lynar, of the distant, warmly-desired one, to whom she
would gladly have devoted her whole existence, but to whom she could
belong only through falsehood. She thought it would be nobler and
greater to renounce him, that her love might be consecrated by her
abnegation, while actually devoting her life to the duties enjoined
by the laws and the Church. But these thoughts filled her bosom with a
nameless sorrow, and it was involuntarily that she wept.
"No," she murmured low, "I cannot make this sacrifice; I cannot make
an offering of my love to my virtue; for this bugbear of a compulsory
marriage I cannot give up a love which God Himself has inspired in my
heart. Then let it be so! Let the world judge and the priests condemn
me. I will not sacrifice my love to a prejudice.
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