Page:The Mikado or the town of titipu.djvu/43

 (with intense passion). Katisha, for years I have loved you with a white-hot passion that is slowly hut surely consuming my very vitals! Ah, shrink not from me! If there is aught of woman's mercy in your heart, turn not away from a love-sick suppliant whose every fibre thrills at your tiniest touch! True it is that, under a poor mask of disgust, I have endeavoured to conceal a passion whose inner fires are broiling the soul within me! But the fire will not be smothered— it defies all attempts at extinction, and, breaking forth, all the more eagerly for its long restraint, it declares itself in words that will not be weighed— that cannot be schooled— that should not be too severely criticised. Katisha, I dare not hope for your love— but I will not live without it! Darling!

You, whose hands still reek with the blood of my betrothed, dare to address words of passion to the woman you have so foully wronged!

I do— accept my love, or I perish on the spot!

Go to! Who knows so well as I that no one ever yet died of a broken heart!

You know not what you say. Listen!