In every object, in every thought lives the mythology of love, like the old-world deities with which poets personified grass, wood, stream, ocean and sky.
The petals of the flowers speak of it, ask whether he loves or not: the birds of song on the house-tops: everything converses of love: and what maiden is there who does not believe what they say?
Poor maidens!
If they but knew how little men deserved that the world of prose should receive its polytheism of love from them!
Poor Czipra!
What a slave she was to her master!
Her slavery was greater than that of the Creole maiden whose every limb grows tired in the service of her master:—every thought of hers served her lord.
From morn till even, nothing but hope, envy, tender flattery, trembling anxiety, the ecstasy of delight, the bitterness of resignation, the burning ravings of passion, and cold despair, striving unceasingly with each other, interchanging, gaining new sustenance from every word, every look of the youth she worshipped.
And then from twilight till dawn ever the same struggle, even in dreams.
"If I were thy dog, you would not treat me so."