"Ah! why have you done so? I would much rather you had not!" said Leonore.
"See you! I knew that," returned her sister, "and therefore I put on a travelling dress, like the rest, and took leave of you with them. I wanted to take you by surprise, you see. You are not angry with me, are you? You must now be contented with it—you can't get rid of me! Look a little happy on me, Leonore!"
"I cannot Eva," said Leonore, "because you have robbed yourself of a great pleasure on my account, and I know that it must have been difficult for you. I know that I am neither agreeable nor pleasing, and that you cannot love me, nor yet have pleasure with me, and on that account I cannot have pleasure in your sacrifice. It becomes you to be with the joyful and the happy. Ah! that you had but gone with them!"
"Do not talk so, unless you would make me weep," said Eva; "you do not know how the thought of giving up all these festivities in order to remain alone with you has given me pleasure for many days, and this precisely because I love you, Leonore! yes, because I feel that I could love you better than all the rest! Nay, do not shake your head—it is so. One cannot help one's feelings."
"But why should you love me?" argued the poor girl; "I am, indeed, so little amiable, nobody can endure me, nobody has pleasure in me; I would willingly die. Ah! I often think it would be so beautiful to die!"
"How can you talk so, Leonore?" said her sister; "it is not right! Would you wish such horrible grief to papa and mamma, and me, and all of us?"
"Ah!" said Leonore, "you and the sisters would soon comfort yourselves. Mamma does not love me as much as any of you others; nor papa either. Ottil R. said the other day that everybody talked of it—that I was beloved neither by father nor mother."
"Fie!" exclaimed Eva, "that was wicked and unjust of Ottil. I am quite certain that our parents love us all alike. Have you ever observed that they unjustly make any difference between us?"
"That I never have," said Leonore; "they are too good and perfect for that. But, do you think I have not observed with how different an expression my father regards me to that with which he looks on you or Louise? Do you think that I do not feel how cold, and at times constrained, is the kiss which my mother gives me, to the two, the three, yes, the many, which, out of the fulness of her heart, she gives to you or to Gabriele? But I do not complain of injustice. I see very well that it cannot be otherwise. Nature has made me so disagreeable, that it is not possible people can bear me. Ah! fortunate indeed are they who possess an agreeable exterior! They win the good-will of people if they only show themselves. It is so easy for them to be amiable, and to be beloved! But difficult, very difficult is it for those who are ill-favoured as I!"
"But, dear Leonore, I assure you, you are unjust towards yourself. Your figure, for example, is very good; your eyes have something so expressive, something at the same time so soft and so earnest; your hair is fine, and is of a beautiful brown;—it would become you so if it were better dressed; but wait awhile, when you are better I will help you to do it, and then you shall see."