"I've considered all that. I know that the thousand little pleasures of life are no longer mine. I shall bear a burden which death alone can remove! I know that. But I've no pity for myself. Where love is dead, justice must reign!"
"Love? The love that could die was not love!"
"Don't let us dispute. We've ceased to understand one another. Listen to my last, my irrevocable words. What is left me? to despise you, or to become despicable myself. Here I stand," said she, drawing herself up, and appearing taller than before, while a dark flush overspread her countenance, "here I stand and tell you that I despise you. I will live with you and by your side, as long as life remains; but I despise you! Know that, and now leave me. I shall appear with you this evening, at the court festival. You shall have no reason to complain of any breach of decorum. Once, love for you was all my life--that memory is mine; you need it not!"
The king arose. He wanted to speak, but it was long before he could utter a word.
"Does anyone know of your sentiments toward me?" he asked, at last, in a hoarse voice.
"No; we owe it to our son that no one should know of it."
"Mathilde, I never would have believed that you could speak thus to me. But it does not come from you; another has forced himself between us. He taught you to think and speak thus!"
"You are the great master who has taught me to substitute hatred for love, and contempt for adoration."
"Does your friend, the doctor, know nothing of what you are now inflicting upon me?"
"I cannot swear to you--you can no longer believe an oath--but this I can say: if Gunther knew that I had suffered myself to be carried away by the ardor of my past love for you, it would grieve him deeply, for anger, hatred, and revenge, are foreign to his great nature!"