"You are terrible, Oldenburg," cried Melitta, half rising from her chair; "it seems I cannot hide the secret of the innermost recesses of my soul from you."
"I am not terrible," said the baron, "I am only in the way, that is the privilege of a friend. Do not think I have obtained your secret by stealth! I have only kept my eyes open, that is all! Or do you think we do not at last learn to understand the faintest vibration in the face which we constantly see when we are awake, and, alas! but too often also in our dreams? And when we have at last abandoned all hope of being loved, we wish at least to be sure that he who is more fortunate is not unworthy of his good luck."
"Oldenburg!"
"He is not unworthy, but--I am your friend, Melitta! He is not quite worthy of you. He has many good and noble qualities, I know; but his character has not been steeled in the thrice sacred fire of misfortune, and thus he cannot appreciate good fortune. He is marvellously susceptible for all that is beautiful and graceful, and so he adores you; but this very susceptibility for all that is beautiful makes it very difficult for him not to forget a fair and lovely object for the sake of one that is fairer and lovelier. He cannot be constant. He is a poet, and the poet's love is the ideal. He is capable of pushing aside a precious jewel with contempt, if his sharp eye should notice the smallest flaw; he seizes whatever the earth offers him with eagerness, and casts it aside because it is of the earth; and even if it were divine he would despise it if it had but a remnant of earthy matter about it."
"You tell me only, Oldenburg, what I have told myself a hundred and a thousand times."
"I know I do. You cannot find it difficult to understand such characters, for they are akin to your own. But you are a woman, and women do not go to the same extreme. You are, after all, willing to submit at last, in spite of long resistance, and then you are proud of your chains; man may boast of them for a time, as long as they are new, but after a while he throws them aside. And so it will be here."
"No, no!"
"Yes, Melitta! It will be so, and--now I know what the dark storm-cloud meant which I saw the other day hang over your head. You may be sure the blow will fall upon you sooner or later, and when you are cast down by its violence and do not wish to live any longer,--though you cannot yet die,--then, Melitta, then you will perhaps be able to understand what I suffer; then you will be sorry in your heart for the wrong you have done me. Would to God you could be spared that awaking! The penalty is so enormous! But, but--you will have to pay it. Farewell, Melitta! Pardon me if I have pained you; it shall not happen again; it is the first and the last time I have spoken thus to you. Farewell, Melitta!--Melitta, have you not one kind word for me?"
Melitta had pressed her face into her hands; the twilight which reigned in the room concealed all but the mere attitude of her form--she would not or could not answer.
The baron held both his hands over her head.