“Oh, Martha! Since yesterday I have been living in such a tumult of feeling that I am almost beside myself. But not without the fear, as when one has too sweet a dream, that I may suddenly awake to a painful reality. I have no right to expect any return for my love. What can I offer you? To-day your favour smiles on me, and lifts me into the seventh Heaven. To-morrow, or a little later, you will withdraw from me again this undeserved favour, and plunge me into an abyss of despair. I know myself no longer. How hyperbolically I am speaking—I who was formerly such a calm, circumspect man, an enemy of all extravagance. But in your presence nothing seems to me extravagant. In your power it lies to make me happy or wretched.”
“Let me speak of my doubts too. The princess ——”
“Oh, has that chatter come to your ears too? There is nothing in it, nothing at all.”
“Of course you deny; that is your duty.”
“The lady in question, whose heart is now imprisoned, as is well known, in the Burg theatre, and how long will that last?—for it is a heart which gives itself away pretty often—this lady is one about whom the most circumspect gentleman need hardly observe the silence of death. So you are doubly bound to believe me. And, besides, should I have wished to leave Vienna if that rumour had had any foundation?”
“Jealousy does not draw reasonable inferences. Should I have ordered you to remain here if I had been near making up a match with my cousin Althaus?”
“It is hard for me, Martha, to be riding so quietly by your side. I should like to fall at your feet, to kiss at least your beloved hand.”
“Dear Frederick,” said I tenderly, “such outward acts are not needed. One can embrace with words too, and caress all the same as——”
“If we kissed,” he said, concluding the sentence.