‘Then, almost beside himself, the Asiatic fell prostrate at the feet of the maiden, and exclaimed, in a supplicating voice: “Mercy! my courage fails me. Have pity on me! do not talk thus. Oh, that day! what years of my life would I not give to hasten it!”
“Silence! no blasphemy. Do not your years belong to me?”
“Adrienne! you love me!”
The young lady did not answer; but her half-veiled, burning glance, dealt the last blow to reason. Seizing her hands in his own, he exclaimed, with a tremulous voice: “That day, in which we shall mount to heaven, in which we shall be gods in happiness—why postpone it any longer?”
“Because our love must be consecrated by the benediction of heaven.”
“Are we not free?”
“Yes, yes, my love; we are free. Let us be worthy of our liberty!”
“Adrienne! mercy!”
“I ask you also to have mercy—to have mercy on the sacredness of our love. Do not profane it in its very flower. Believe my heart! believe my presentiments! to profane it would be to kill. Courage, my adored lover! a few days longer—and then happiness—without regret, and without remorse!”
“And, until then, hell! tortures without a name! You do not, cannot know what I suffer when I leave your presence. Your image follows me, your breath burns me up; I cannot sleep, but call on you every night with sighs and tears—just as I called on, you, when I thought you did not love me—and yet I know you love me, I know you are mine. But to see you every day more beautiful, more adored—and every day to quit you more impassioned—oh! you cannot tell—”