"No," said she, "I should everywhere long to be back in my garden.
Nowhere is it so beautiful as here. Leave me my paradise--why would you
drive me from it?"
"Alas!" despairingly exclaimed Carlo, "you call yourself happy and
satisfied; why, then, are you so sad?"
"Am I sad?" she asked, with surprise. "No, Carlo, I am not sad! I
sometimes dream, nothing more! Let me yet dream!"
"You will die," thought Carlo, and with an effort he forced back the cry
of despair that pressed to his lips; but his cheeks paled, and his whole
form trembled.
Seeing it, Natalie shook off her apathy, and with a lively sympathy and
tender friendship she inquired the cause of his disquiet. She was so
near him that her breath fanned his cheek, and her locks touched his
brow.
"Ah, you would kill me, you would craze me!" murmured he, sorrowfully,
sinking down, powerless, at her feet.
She looked wonderingly at him. "Why are you angry with me?" she
innocently said, "and what have I done, that you so wrongfully accuse
me?"
"What have you done?" cried he, beside himself,--the moment had overcome
him, this moment had burst the bands with which he had bound his heart,
and in unfettered freedom, in glowing passion, his long-concealed secret
forced its way to his lips. He must at length for once speak of his
sorrows, even if death should follow; he must give expression to his
torment and his love, even should Natalie banish him forever from her
presence!
"What have you done?" repeated he. "Ah, she does not even know that she
is slowly murdering me, she does not even know that I love her!"
"Am I not to know?" she reproachfully asked. "Would you, indeed, have
saved my life had you not loved me? Carlo I am indebted to you for my
life, and you say I murder you!"
"Yes," he frowardly exclaimed, "you murder me! Slowly, day by day,
hour by hour, am I consumed by this frightful internal fire that is
destroying me. Ah, you know not that you are killing me. And have you
not destroyed my youthful strength, and from a man converted me into an
old, trembling, and complaining woman? Is it not for your sake that I
have fled the world, leaving behind me all it offered of fame and wealth
and honor? Is it not your fault that I have ceased to be a free man, to
have a will of my own, and have become a slave crawling at your feet?
Ah, woe is me, that I ever came to know you! You are an enchantress,
you have made me your hound, and, whining, I lie in the dust before you,
satisfied when you touch me with your foot."