face.]

SOBEIDE.
Thou weepest too, then, on thy wedding-day?
And have I spoiled some dream for thee? Look hither:
Thou sayst, I am so young, and this, and this--
[Points to hair and cheeks.]
Are young indeed, but weary is my spirit,
So weary, that there is no word to tell
How weary and how aged before my time.
We are one age, perhaps thou art the younger.
In conversation once thou saidst to me,
That almost all the years since I was born
Had passed for thee in sitting in thy gardens
And in the quiet tower thou hast builded,
To watch the stars from it. 'Twas on that day
It first seemed possible to me, that thy
And, more than that, my father's fond desire
Might be ... fulfilled. For I supposed the air
In this thy house must have some lightness in it,
So light, so burdenless!--And in our house
It was so overladen with remembrance,
The airy corpse of sleepless nights went floating
All through it, and on all the walls there hung
The burden of those fondly cherished hopes,
Once vivid, then rejected, long since faded.
The glances of my parents rested ever
Upon me, and their whole existence.--Well,
Too well I knew each quiver of an eyelash,
And over all there was the constant pressure
Of thy commanding will, that on my soul
Lay like a coverlet of heavy sleep.
'Twas common, that I yielded at the last:
I seek no other word. And yet the common
Is strong, and all our life is full of it.
How could I thrust it down and trample on it,
While I was floundering in it up to the neck?

MERCHANT.
So my desire lay like a cruel nightmare
Upon thy breast! Then thou must surely hate me ...

SOBEIDE.
I hate thee not, I have not learned to hate,
And only just began to learn to love.
The lessons stopped, but I am fairly able
To do such things as, with that smile thou knowest,
To dance, with heart as heavy as the stones,
To face each heavy day, each coming evil
With smiles: the utmost power of my youth
That smile consumed, but to the bitter end