They went down into the garden and walked up and down, arm in arm, till they came to the low terrace, where Oswald had found Melitta when he called upon her that Sunday afternoon. They sat down under the pine-tree, which spread its branches over them as if in protection. The night was marvellously silent. The trees stood quiet, not a leaf stirring, as if they were fast asleep; fragrant perfumes filled the warm, dry air, and glow-worms were wandering through the night like bright tiny stars.
"You did not answer my question, Melitta," said Oswald. "What is it the last eight days have changed in me? Am I not the same I was; only that the bitter regret at having hurt your feelings has made my love for you deeper and warmer?"
Melitta made no reply; suddenly she said, speaking low and quick:
"Have you seen much of him since that Sunday at Barnewitz?"
"Of whom, Melitta?"
"Well, of--of Baron Oldenburg. God be thanked, I have said it. It is so childish and foolish in me to have hesitated so long to speak of Oldenburg, and to tell you what our relations have been,--and yet I felt you had a right to know it, and I was bound to lift the veil from my past, wherever it might appear dark to you. This feeling grew so overwhelming in me, especially when I found that you had become intimate with the baron, that I wanted to see you at any price, and this suggested to me the foolish plan."
"I have no such right as you say," replied Oswald, "to be foolishly curious. I have to be grateful for the love which you grant me, and I am grateful for it, as for a sweet gift from on high. There was a time, I confess, when my love still knew what doubt was, but that was not yet true, genuine love. Now I cannot imagine that I could ever cease to love you, or that you could ever do so. I feel even as if this love was not only intended to be eternal, but had actually existed before, in all eternity. I do not know if you ever loved before; it may be, but I do not comprehend it, and would not comprehend it, even if you were to say so expressly."
"And I assure you," said Melitta tenderly, coming closer to Oswald, "I have never loved till I saw you; for what I before called love was only unsatisfied longing after an ideal which I bore in my heart, which I could find nowhere, and which I had long despaired of ever finding."
"And you fancy that I am this personified ideal? Poor Melitta! How soon you will awake from this dream! Awake, Melitta! awake--it is time yet!"
"No, Oswald, it is too late. There is a love which is as strong as death, and there is no awaking from it. No! No awaking. I feel it. I know it. And if you were to turn your face from me, and if you were to push me from you--with you I know not what offended love, what insulted pride are--nothing but immeasurable, unfathomable, inexhaustible love. Till now I only knew that I could love; how much I could love, you first have taught me....