"My Dear Mother:
"After the many sorrows and pains I have continuously caused throughout my life to the tenderest of mothers' hearts, to-day I can send you news of joy.
"I am about to marry.
"I am taking to wife one who has loved me as a poor, nameless, homeless youth, for myself alone, and whom I love for her faithful heart, her soul pure as tried gold, still better than she loves me.
"My darling has neither rank nor wealth: her parents were gypsies.
"I shall not laud her to you in poetic phrases: these I do not understand. I can only feel, but not express my feelings.
"No other letter of recommendation can be required of you, save that I love her.
"Our love has hitherto only caused both of us pain: now I desire happiness for both of us.
"Your blessing will make the cup of this happiness full.
"You are good. You love me, you rejoice in my joy.
"You know me. You know what lessons life has taught me.
"You know that Fate always ordained wisely and providentially for me.
"No miracle is needed to make you, my mother, the best of mothers, who love me so, and are calm and peaceful in God, clasp together those hands of blessing which from my earliest days you have never taken off my head.
"Include in your prayer, beside my name, the name of my faithful darling, Czipra, too.
"I believe in your blessing as in every word of my religion, as in the forgiveness of sins, as in the world to come.
"But if you are not what God made you,—quiet and loving, a mother always ready to give her blessing with the halo of eternal love round your brow,—if you are cold, quick to anger, a woman of vengeance, proud of the coronet of a family blazon, one who wishes herself to rule Fate, and if the curses of such a merciless lady burden the girl whom I love, then so much the worse, I shall take her to wife with her dowry of curses—for I love her.
"... God intercede between our hearts.
"Your loving son,
"Lorand."
As the minister read, Czipra at each sentence pressed Lorand's hand closer to her heart. She could neither speak nor weep: it was more than her spirit could bear. Every line, every phrase opened a Paradise before her, full of gladness of the other world: her soul's idol loved her: loved her for love's sake: loved her for herself: loved her because she made him happy: raised her to his own level: was not ashamed of her wretched origin: could understand a heart's sensitiveness: commended her name to his mother's prayers: and was ready to maintain his love amidst his mother's curses.
A heart cannot bear such glory!
She did not care about anything now: about her wound: about life, or death: she felt only that glow of health which coursed through every sinew of her body and possessed every thought of her soul.
"I believe!" she said in rapture, rising where she lay: and in those words was everything: everything in which people are wont to believe, from the love of God to the love of man.
She did not care about anything now. She had no thought for men's eyes or men's words: but, as she uttered these words, she fell suddenly on Lorand's neck, drew him with the force of delight to her heart, and covered him with her kisses.
The wound reopened in her breast, and as the girl's kisses covered the face of the man she loved, her blood covered his bosom.
Each time her impassioned lips kissed him, a fresh gush of blood spurted from that faithful heart, which had always been filled with thoughts of him only, which had beat only for him, which had, to save him, received the murderer's knife:—the poor "green-robed" faithful girl.
And as she pressed her last kiss upon the lips of her darling, ... she knew already what was the meaning of eternity....