But in spite of it all I can be
very consistent and true to myself in a question of real
importance."
Wilhelm drew away from the hand that caressed his lips and cheek,
and said, averting his eyes:
"You are a beautiful woman, and have a most exceptional mind, and it
must be happiness indeed to be loved by you, but in order that that
happiness might be full, one would have to love you in return, and
there are men--I do not know whether to call them too proud or too
fastidious--who can only love with their whole heart or not at all,
and who cannot endure that the woman they love should treasure
another image or other memories in her life."
"Stop, my friend, stop!" cried the countess. "You do not realize
what you are saying. That comes of your pride and vanity. You always
want to be the first--to write your names at the head of a blank
sheet. Why? Is the conquest of a silly, ignorant girl more
flattering than that of a woman of sense, who can compare and judge?
Is not your triumph a thousand times greater when a disappointed,
deeply-skeptical woman lays her heart at your feet, and says--'You I
will trust, you will bring me healing and happiness'--than when a
young girl gives you her love because you happen to be the first man
who asks for it? Other images!--other memories! Do you know so
little of a woman's heart? Do you imagine that the past exists for
us when real true love comes upon us? We see nothing in the whole
world but the one man, we cannot believe that our heart has not
always beat for him, and we are firmly persuaded that we have always
known and always loved him and him alone.
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