Your eyes have kindled these flames, and this poor heart will consume in their glow if I am not suffered to confess to you that I love you with more ardour than was ever bestowed on any maiden.

This place--I will admit that it is ill-chosen--but what other was open to me?
After all, here, too, a bit of the sky with its many stars is looking down upon us.

But, if you still unkindly refuse me, or the dread of crossing the barrier of strict decorum forbids you to listen to me here, you can mercifully name another spot.

Allow me to go to your father and beg him for the clear hand which, in a happier hour, by not resisting the pressure of mine, awakened the fairest hopes in my heart." "This is too much," Barbara indignantly broke in.

"Make way for me at once, and, if you are well advised, you will spare yourself the visit to my father; for, even if you were in earnest with your love and came as an honest suitor to our modest house, it might easily happen that you would descend the staircase, which is very steep and narrow, in as sorrowful a mood as you climbed it secure of victory." Then Pyramus Kogel changed his tone, and said bitterly: "So your victorious eyes were only carrying on an idle game with my unsuspecting heart?
You laugh! But I expected to find in my German native land only girls whose chaste reserve and simple honesty could be trusted.