"Eyes, look your last! Arms take your last embrace!"
Corinne, whose senses still wandered, shrieked: "Great God! what say you? Would you leave me!"—"No, no, I swear!" he cried. At that instant a crowd of admiring friends broke in upon them; she anxiously desired to hear what he had meant to say, but they were not left alone together for an instant, and could not speak to each other again that evening.
Never had any drama produced such an effect in Italy. The Romans extolled the piece, the translation, and the actress; asserting that this was the tragedy which represented them to the life, and gave an added value to their language, by eloquence at once inspired and natural. Corinne received all these eulogiums with gracious sweetness; but her soul hung on these brief words: "I swear!" believing that they contained the secret of her destiny.
[1] Corinne's translation deviated widely from the original. Minor points I have presumed to reconcile, but this I must leave as I find, though the two parting scenes in Romeo and Juliet are so dissimilar, that it is difficult to guess how they could become confused in such a mind as Madame de Staël's; or why she should have omitted all mention of Tybalt's death, and Romeo's banishment.—TR.