Chapter XVII

Then, while he spoke with hands there clasping mine,
And eyes that tired mine own with so much light
Their trembling lids were vext by feeble tears,
Doretta came.
But startled, seeing me,
She only smiled; said: “Haydn, what! awake?—
And you, Pauline?—You good have been, so good;
Nor call’d me; no. How very kind in you!
Why, after all, some little training thus
Might make you like, perhaps, to be a nurse,—
Or housekeeper.—To-day, how wreck’d it look’d,
Your room! Our father just now came from there;
So vex’d, you know.”
I flush’d, and thought, at least,
That she to speak of it had not been kind.
And could have told her so, but check’d the words,
And went my way; and sought my father first,
And told him what the cause had been, and then
I sought my room, and pray’d that I might know
If it were well to tell my father too
Of Haydn’s love; or tell my own to Haydn;
Or if he loved me, since my sister’s words.
If only he could know my soul in truth,
I felt that I could suffer all things then;
Could die, if so the veil about my heart
Withdrawn could be, and show him how I loved.
Alas, I did not know then, had not learn’d,
That love may more endure than even death.

XVIII.

The sunset brought Doretta to my room;
And she began, and chided me, and said:
“How dared you talk! and what were Haydn’s words?—
He lay so ill, with fever high, so high.
He could but rave. How dared you lead him on?
He worse may grow,—Who knows, Pauline?—may die;
And all the cause may be your nursing him!—
When will you learn to learn what you know not?”