The general sprang with a savage curse from his arm-chair, and would have rushed to his daughter, but his wife pushed him back into his seat, and approached Marie, who rose, regarding her mother with a firm, sad expression. “Why can you not be the wife of the man we have chosen for you? Answer me, WHY you cannot?”
“You know, mother,” she replied, and gradually her voice assumed a more decided tone, her cheeks reddened, and an inspired expression beamed from her eyes, and pervaded her whole being—“you know, mother, that I can never be the wife of Herr Ebenstreit, for I do not love him. I despise and abominate him, because he is a man without honor; he knows that I do not love him, and yet he insists upon marrying me. If it were not so, if I did not despise and abominate him, I would not receive his suit and marry him.”
“Why not?” cried the general, shaking his fist at his daughter.
“Why not?” cried the mother, with a cold, icy glance, void of pity or anger.
Marie encountered these looks with beaming eyes. “Because I am betrothed to another,” and the words came like a cry of joy from her heart—“because I am engaged to my beloved Moritz!”
“Shameless, obstinate creature, have we not forbidden it?” cried her father.
“Stop!” interrupted his wife, with a commanding wave of her hand, which silenced the obedient husband immediately. “It belongs to me to question her, for I am her mother, and my daughter owes me submission and obedience above all things.—Answer me, Marie, did you not know that we had forbidden you to speak to this man, or have any communication with him? Did you not know that I, your mother, had menaced you with a curse if you married this man, or even spoke to the miserable, pitiable creature?”
“Mother,” cried Marie, vehemently, “he is not a poor, miserable creature. You may hate him, but you dare not outrage the noble, the good, and just man!”
“He is a good-for-nothing fellow,” cried her father; “he has tried to win a minor behind the parents’ back. He is a shameful, good-for-nothing seducer.”
“He is dishonorable,” cried the general’s wife—“a dishonorable man, who has misused our confidence. We confided to him our daughter to teach, and paid him for it. He improved the opportunity to make a declaration of love, and stole the time from us to infatuate the heart of our daughter with flattery, and from his pupil win a bride.”