Anna did not answer at once; her eyes were directed with a dreamy expression to the smiling countenance of Pollnitz, and while he recounted his own tender care, and the gracious sympathy of the king, Anna appeared to be slowly waking out of her dream. Now a ray of consciousness and recollection overspread her features, and throwing up her arm with a rapid movement she administered a powerful blow on the cheek of her tender, smiling lover, who fell back with his hand to his face, whimpering with pain.
"Why did you shrug your shoulders?" she said, her lips trembling with anger, and, springing up from the sofa, she approached Pollnitz with a threatening expression, who, expecting a second explosion, drew back, "Why did you shrug your shoulders?" repeated Anna.
"I am not aware that I did so, my Anna," stammered Pollnitz.
She stamped impatiently on the floor. "I am not your Anna. You are a faithless, treacherous man, and I despise you; you are a coward, you have not the courage to defend the woman you have sworn to love and protect. When I ceased singing, why did you not applaud?"
"Dearest Anna," said Pollnitz, "you are not acquainted with court etiquette; you do not know that at court it is only the king who expresses approval."
"You all broke out into a storm of applause as Farinelli finished singing."
"Because the king gave the sign."
Anna shrugged her shoulders contemptuously, and paced the floor with rapid steps. "You think that all my hopes, all my proud dreams for the future are destroyed," she murmured, with trembling lips, while the tears rolled slowly down her cheeks. "To think that the king and the whole court laughed while I sang, and that presumptuous Italian heard and saw it all—I shall die of this shame and disgrace. My future is annihilated, my hopes trodden under foot." She covered her face with her hands, and wept and sobbed aloud.
Pollnitz had no pity for her sufferings, but he remembered his creditors, and this thought rekindled his extinguished tenderness. He approached her, and gently placed his arm around her neck. "Dearest," he murmured, "why do you weep, how can this little mischance make you so wretched? Do we not love each other? are you not still my best beloved, my beautiful, my adored Anna? Have you not sworn that you love me, and that you ask no greater happiness than to be united to me?"
Anna raised her head that she might see this tender lover.