"I love you because you are different from every one else; because what
attracts others does not charm you; what terrifies others does not
intimidate you; I love you precisely because you are the poor adventurer
you call yourself. Thank heaven that you are no sensible, prudent,
deliberate gentleman, who longs for titles and orders, for money and
position, but the clever adventurer who calls nothing his own save his
honor, seeks nothing save peril, loves nothing save--"

"Loves nothing save Leonore," he ardently interrupted. "Believe me, it is
so! I love nothing save you, and, until I knew you, I did not know even
love, only hate."

"Hate?" she asked, smiling. "And whom did you hate, my loved one?"

"The foes of my native land," he cried, while a dark, angry flush swept
over his handsome, expressive face, and his dark eyes flashed more
brightly.

"The foes of your native land?" she repeated, smiling. "And who are these
hated foes?"

"The Prussians and the Emperor Napoleon. It was the Prussians who first
dismembered my hapless country. Oh, I was but a little boy when the Empress
Catharine and King Frederick stole the fairest portions of hapless Poland.
I did not understand my mother's tears, my father's execrations, but as my
father commanded me, I laid my hand upon the Bible and vowed eternal,
inextinguishable hatred of the Prussians. And the boy's vow has been kept
by the man. I have struggled ceaselessly against these ambitious
land-greedy, avaricious Prussians; fought with my tongue, my sword, and my
pen. And when at last, at Jena, they were vanquished and forced to bow to