"'Robert,' said I, 'you are deceiving yourself.'
"He stopped, looked at me and laughed out loud: 'What is it you want of me? Am I perhaps to demand a written confirmation of her refusal, before I betake myself off?'
"'Robert,' I continued, without allowing myself to be put out, 'tell me candidly whether you love her?'
"'Child,' he replied, 'should I be here if I did not love her?'
"With his huge arms outspread he stood before me. I felt as if I must be crushed between them if they closed around me--everything danced before my eyes--I squeezed myself further into my corner. And then there came into my thoughts what I had pictured to myself now and for years before; how I would love him if I were Martha, and how I should want him to love me in return.
"'See, Robert.' I said, 'taking me altogether, I am a foolish creature. But as regards love, I do know about that, not only through the poets; I have felt it in myself for a long time.'
"'Do you love some one then?' he asked.
"I blushed and shook my head.
"'How else can you feel it within you?' he went on.
"'It came as an inspiration from Heaven,' I replied, lowering my gaze to the ground, 'but I know I would not love like you two. I would not be downcast, I would not steal away as you are doing and say: "It is better so!" I would compel her with the ardour of my soul; I would conquer her with the strength of my arms; I would clasp her to my breast and carry her away with me, no matter whither! Out into the night, into the desert, if no sun would shine upon us, no house give us shelter. I would starve with her at the roadside, rather than give fair words to the world--the world that sought to separate me from her. Thus, Robert, I would act if I were you; and if I were she, I would laughingly throw myself upon your breast, and would say to you: "Come, I will go a-begging for you if you have no bread, my lap shall be your resting-place if you have no bed, your wounds I will heal with my tears--I will suffer a thousand deaths for your sake, and thank God that it is vouchsafed to me to do so." You see, Robert, that is how I imagine love, and not pasted together out of fear of mothers-in-law and unpaid interests.'