would be surprised; but the psychological point is in harmony with Heyse's entire erotic system; for through the murder of her husband she endeavored to kill the awakening impulse of her own heart, and thus sacrilegiously rebelled against Eros. "And stooping, He bowed his face until it reached my brow; His flutt'ring breath went rippling over me, And stealthily, like streams of poison, ran His low-toned voice through all my veins." Now left alone with her shattered soul, she recoils with horror at a deed which is so genuinely feminine, and in which she is so entirely justified. The apparition of the dead man haunts her wherever she goes, but still more than the aspect of his dead body, the remembrance of his caresses. "Only a day and a night have passed since that deed was accomplished," says she, "and yet it lies behind me as a thousand years and a thousand deaths. One thing alone is, and ever will be, present with me: his kiss upon my eyelids, his hand within my own." Toward the end she expresses to her sister the fundamental idea in these words:-- "From Love, oh, do not flee! She will o'ertake you if you do. Go humbly And kneel before her shrine. For deadly anger She heaps on those who dare defy her will, And sucks their blood. And is not every maiden In bondage stern to this grim god? O sister, I only must atone for free resistance."[15] Even the man that has approached her through violence, cannot be hated by the young virgin. He broke the peace; but what else does Love? He outwitted her; but is not Love crafty? He mocked; but does not Love scoff even at the most powerful and most free? In other words: is not Eros himself a worker of violence, without shyness or shame, a criminal who overleaps all customary bounds.