Page:The Campaner thal, and other writings.djvu/161

 fingers of her wounded arm to-night for the first time pressed suddenly against the arm in which they lay; the only living mortal's arm by which Joy, Love, and the Earth were still united with her bosom. The Conrector, rapturously terrified at the first pressure of a female hand, bent over his right to take hold of her left; and Thiennette, observing his unsuccessful movement, lifted her fingers, and laid her whole wounded arm in his, and her whole left hand in his right. Two lovers dwell in the Whispering-gallery, where the faintest breath bodies itself forth into a sound. The good Conrector received and returned this blissful love-pressure, wherewith our poor, powerless soul, stammering, hemmed in, longing, distracted, seeks for a warmer language, which exists not; he was over-powered; he had not the courage to look at her; but he looked into the gleam of the twilight, and said (and here for unspeakable love the tears were running warm over his cheeks): "Ah, I will give you all; fortune, life, and all that I have, my heart and my hand."

She was about to answer, but, casting a side glance, she cried, with a shriek: "Ah, Heaven!" He started round, and perceived the white muslin sleeve all dyed with blood; for in putting her arm into his, she had pushed away the bandage from the open vein. With the speed of lightning, he hurried her into the acacia-grove; the blood was already running from the muslin; he grew paler than she, for every drop of it was coming from his heart. The blue-white arm was bared; the bandage was put on: he tore a piece of gold from his pocket; clapped it, as one does with open arteries, on the spouting fountain, and bolted with this golden bar, and with the bandage