And you say that you
will leave me--for what? Because your father has done a terrible deed,
and has taken his own life. For a name--for nothing else! What is a
name to me, compared with you yourself? I love you so, that if you had
yourself done the most monstrous crime, I would not leave you, not if
we were to die a shameful death together. And you would leave me, for
my own good! For my advantage--oh, I would not have heaven itself
without you. Forget! What would there be left to remember, if you were
taken? The emptiness of the place where you were, the wide emptiness
that all heaven could never fill! Your name--do you love it better
than me? But I know that you love me, though you are mad. Then put your
name away, cast it from you to whomsoever will have it. Do you think
that Hilda von Sigmundskron cares for names, or wants new ones? Am I a
peasant's child, to sigh for a coronet and to give you up because you
have put it off? Be what you will, you are only Greif to me, and Greif,
only, means more to me than heaven or earth and all that are in them.
You shake your head--what would you say? That it is not true? My love
needs no oaths to bind it, nor to prove it. You can see it in my face,
for I know that it is there. Yes--you cannot meet my eyes--honest as
you are, and good, and noble, and true-hearted as any man that ever
drew breath. Do you know why? You dare not--you who dare anything else.
I love you the more for having dared this--but you shall not do it.
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