The young man gave a slight start and dropped his eyes. Eliza saw it, and a sarcastic smile played round her lips. "Why do you not speak?" she said. "Reply to me. Did I understand you? Did you make serious proposals of marriage to me? Will you go down to my father this very day and say to him: 'Listen, sir. I, the aristocratic gentleman, I, Captain Ulrich von Hohenberg, want to marry your daughter Lizzie. I think this country girl, with her manners, her language and bearing, is well fitted to associate with my aristocratic and distinguished family, and my parents in Munich would be overjoyed if I should bring to them this Tyrolese girl as their daughter-in-law, and a brown cow and a white goat as her dower.' Tell me, sir, will you go down to my dear father, the innkeeper of Windisch-Matrey, and say that to him?"
"But, Eliza," sighed the young man, mournfully, "if you loved me only a little, you would not immediately think of marriage, but would forget every thing else, allow your whole past to sink into oblivion behind you, and think of nothing but the fact that I love you intensely, and that you return my love."
"But I do not admit at all that I love you," said Eliza, proudly; "on the contrary, you alone say and swear that you love me, and I reply that I do not believe you."
"And why do you not believe me, cruel, beautiful girl?"
"Because you utter so many fine phrases which amount to nothing at all. You tell me that you are very fond of me, but I think if you love any body with all your heart, you must be anxious to preserve him from misfortune, and do all you can to make him happy, even though it were at the expense of your own happiness. But you, sir, do not intend to make me happy; on the contrary, you are bent on plunging me into misery and disgrace, and that is the reason why I contend that you do not love me."
"Then you have a heart of stone," cried Ulrich von Hohenberg, despairingly; "you will not see what I am suffering, nor how intensely I love you."
"Sir," said she, smiling, "if I cannot comprehend it, pray explain to me how you love me."
"I love you as the most beautiful, lovely, and charming creature I have ever known and admired. I love you as a girl whose innocence, naturalness, and goodness, fill my heart with ecstasy and profound emotion; by whose side I should like to spend my whole life, and united with whom I should wish to seek for a lonely island of happiness to dream there—remote from the world, its prejudices and follies—a sweet, blissful love-life, from which only death would arouse us."
"Sir, if you really love me in this manner, you need not run away with me to seek elsewhere in foreign lands the 'lonely island of happiness,' as you call it, for in that case you would have it round you wherever we might be, and, above all things, here in our mountains. But, look, it is just as I said; you are desirous to find a 'lonely island of happiness'—that is to say, nobody is to find out that the aristocratic gentleman loves the poor Tyrolese girl, and that is the reason why you want us to hide in the mountains or elsewhere, and see if we can be happy without the blessing of the priest, our dear parents, and all other good men."
"Oh, Eliza, have mercy on me. I swear to you that I love you intensely; that I would be the happiest of men if I could marry you publicly and make you my wife in the face of the whole world, that— "