"Owing to your irregular life the letter to you must have been lost--an unfortunate chance which I do not lament over much." "Then for two years I was in Russia, lost to you. I had business that made me acquainted with sables and ermines. I exonerate you from blame for that time, nevertheless you thus became my debtor. However, if you leave the stage, you cannot redeem yourself now, you no longer have your own independent earnings and possessions. Therefore, from henceforth, you belong to me! Thank the Madonna that I have come to hold you back from a crime--follow me!" "Never!" said Giulia, folding her hands. "Do you then think that my passion for you is extinguished? Even when far away it burned in my bosom with silent fervour, and this glow expands into bright flames since I have seen you once more, because you are the most beautiful woman whom I have met with upon my manifold journies in life, and I have seen women of every nation and of every class. It is a proud sensation that of possessing you, not secretly, no, before all the world to display you, and it is a delight to fold you in my arms." Giulia hid her face as she drew back. "Yet do not believe that it is the same old love, as beneath Italy's orange and myrtle trees when you were my Madonna, when my heart beat for you, when I looked up to you as to a queen of heaven floating amid a bright halo. And even then, when you parted from me as from one unworthy who might not follow in the ascending paths of your life, even in the desolate existence that I led, still I always looked up as one looks up at a heavenly orb through a crevice in a grotto. Then came those days of Lago Maggiore, I watched and saw how you were faithless to me, you bought yourself free from my anger, because then I was in a desperate position, but since that time my feelings have been completely metamorphosed. My Madonna was one no longer, and though she may not repent, I have vowed to myself to make her do so." "Oh, to be fettered to crime, and in addition by sacred bonds--is there a more unhappy fate? Is despair not justified, even when it clutches convulsively at transient felicity? Well, I may belong to you, but you do not belong to me, never so long as my spirit can move its wings in liberty, can appreciate the beautiful, believe in what is noble." Giulia had risen proudly, she had recovered herself, overcame her fear and terror, courage of death shone on her brow. "Any one who saw you now--truly a vestal, whose fire, alas, had often gone out. It looks like gold and is brass, it gleams like silver and is tin. And this, on the day on which a crime shall be consecrated. The cocks have already crowed, midnight is past, your second wedding day will soon dawn, do not forget your first myrtles; its stars still shine, the second can only consist of nightshade and fox-glove, it breathes the poison of a lie. _Corpo di bacco_--such a saint--it makes one laugh!"