"Later, later: you needn't marry yet...."
"No, mamma, I never can, because I...."
She looked at him beseechingly, enquiringly.
"Because I want to abdicate ... my rights ... in favour of ... Berengar...."
She made no reply; feebly she drooped against him, not knowing how to console and cheer him, and softly and plaintively began to sob. It was as though her soul was being flooded with anguish, slowly but persistently, until it brimmed over. She reproached herself with it all. He was her child: the future Emperor of Liparia had derived this weakness from her. And the manifestation of this agonizing mystery of heredity before her despairing eyes deprived her of all her strength, of all her courage, of all her power of acquiescence and resignation.
"Mamma," he repeated.
She sobbed on.
"Don't be so disconsolate.... Berengar will be better than I.... You'll tell papa, won't you?... Or no, never mind, if it costs you too great an effort: I'll tell him myself...."
She started up nervously from her despair:
"O my God, no! Othomar, no! Don't talk to him about it: he is so passionate, he would ... he would murder you! Promise me that you will not talk to him about it! I will tell him—O my God!—I will tell him...."