Djalma, deeply moved,
"with so much calm and earnest tenderness, I think I see a mother
occupied with the future prospects of her darling child--trying to
surround him with all that can make him strong, valiant, and
generous--trying to remove far from him all that is ignoble and unworthy.
You ask me to tell you if your thoughts seem strange to me, Adrienne. You
forget, that what makes my faith in our love, is my feeling exactly as
you do. What offends you, offends me also; what disgusts you, disgusts
me. Just now, when you cited to me the laws of this country, which
respect in a woman not even a mother's right--I thought with pride of our
barbarous countries, where woman, though a slave, is made free when she
becomes a mother. No, no; such laws are not made either for you or me. Is
it not to prove your sacred respect for our love, to wish to raise it
above the shameful servitude that would degrade it? You see, Adrienne, I
have often heard said by the priests of my country, that there were
beings inferior to the gods, but superior to every other creature. I did
not believe those priests; but now I do." These last words were uttered,
not in the tone of flattery, but with an accent of sincere conviction,
and with that sort of passionate veneration and almost timid fervor,
which mark the believer talking of his faith; but what is impossible to
describe, is the ineffable harmony of these almost religious words, with
the mild, deep tone of the young Oriental's voice--as well as the ardent
expression of amorous melancholy, which gave an irresistible charm to his
enchanting features.

Adrienne had listened to Djalma with an indescribable mixture of joy,
gratitude, and pride. Laying her hand on her bosom, as if to keep down
its violent pulsations, she resumed, as she looked at the prince with
delight: "Behold him, ever the same!--just, good, great!--Oh, my heart!
my heart! how proudly it beats. Blessed be God, who created me for this
adored lover! He must mean to astonish the world, by the prodigies of
tenderness and charity, that such a love may produce. They do not yet
know the sovereign might of free, happy, ardent love. Yes, Djalma! on the
day when our hands are joined together, what hymns of gratitude will
ascend to heaven!--Ah! they do not know the immense, the insatiable
longing for joy aria delight, which possesses two hearts like ours; they
do not know what rays of happiness stream from the celestial halo of such
a fla