What is one human heart to a hundred thousand?
A grain of sand. Herr, let mine be broken; I shall not murmur. Alas!
to be a princess, a puppet in this tinsel show of kings and queens! It
is my word and the King's will which have made my happiness an
impossibility. Though I love you, I wish never to see you again. I
shall be wife but in name, yet I may not have a lover. I am not a
woman of the court. I am proud of my honor, though the man who is to
be my husband doubts that."
"No, Gretchen," said I, "he does not doubt it, but he wishes me to do
so. I believe in your innocence as I believe in your love."
"It is sad, is it not," said she, "that we must go through our days
loving each other and all the world standing between? I have never
loved a man before; I did not want to love you. I did not know that I
loved you till I saw that your life was in danger. Yet I am glad that
I have lived for a brief second, for till a woman loves she does not
live. I am brave; do you be likewise. I shall go back to the world,
and who shall know of the heart of fire beneath the ice! Not even the
man I love.
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