"Let us say it together, say it to God and
man, say it to heaven and earth, say it to the mute, unheeding
elements! Say it eternally, and let all nature repeat it eternally with
us!" ... I fell on my knees before her, with my hands clasped, and my
disordered hair falling over my face. "Be calm," she said, placing her
fingers on my lips, "and let me speak without interruption to the end."
I sat down and remained silent.
"I have said," she resumed, "or rather I have not said, I have called
out to you from the depths of my soul, that I love you! I love with all
the accumulated power of the expectations, dreams, and impatient
longings of a sterile life of eight-and-twenty years, passed in
watching and not seeing, in seeking and not finding, what some
presentiment taught me to expect, and you have revealed to me. But,
alas, I have known and loved you too late, if you understand love as
most men do, and as you seemed to comprehend it, when you spoke just
now, those light and profane words. Listen to me once more," she added,
"and understand me; I am yours, wholly yours.
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