Will you allow me this, my lily, my beautiful swan?"
He would have again grasped her hand, but she withdrew it with a proud,
angry glance.
"Speak on," said she, wearily leaning her hand against the myrtle-bush.
"Speak on, I will listen to you!"
And he spoke to her of his love; he informed her of his former life, his
poverty, his want, his connection with Corilla, whom he had quitted in
order to devote himself wholly to her, to obey, serve, and worship
her all his life, and, if necessary, to die for her! "But you," he
despairingly said, "you know not love! Your heart is cold for earthly
love; like the angels in heaven, you love only the good and the sublime,
you love mankind collectively, but not the individual. Ah, Natalie, you
have the heart of an angel, but not the heart of a woman!"
The young maiden had half dreamingly listened to him, her hand leaned
back and her glance directed toward the heavens. She now smiled, and,
with an inimitable grace, laying her hand upon her bosom, said in a very
low tone: "And yet I feel that a woman's heart is beating there. But it
sleeps! Who will one day come to awaken it?"
Carlo did not understand these low whispered words; he understood only
his own passion, his own consuming glow.
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