splay thy hideous folds,
and rear thy proud coils to heaven! Stand before my eyes, hateful as the
abyss of hell e'er saw thee! but not in that angel form! Take any shape
but that! 'Tis too late. I must crush thee like a viper, or despair!
Mercy on thy soul!

LOUISA. Oh! that it should come to this!

FERDINAND (gazing on her). So fair a work of the heavenly artist! Who
would believe it? Who can believe it? (Taking her hand and elevating
it.) I will not arraign thy ordinations, oh! incomprehensible Creator!
Yet wherefore didst thou pour thy poison into such beauteous vessels?
Can crime inhabit so fair a region? Oh! 'tis strange! 'tis passing
strange!

LOUISA. To hear this, and yet be compelled to silence!

FERDINAND. And that soft, melodious voice! How can broken chords
discourse such harmony? (Gazing rapturously upon her figure.) All so
lovely! so full of symmetry! so divinely perfect! Throughout the whole
such signs that 'twas the favorite work of God! By heaven, as though all
mankind had been created but to practise the Creator, ere he modelled
this his masterpiece! And that the Almighty should have failed in the
soul alone? Is it possible that this monstrous abortion of nature should
have escaped as perfect? (Quitting her hastily.) Or did God see an
angel's form rising beneath his chisel, and balance the error by giving
her a heart wicked in proportion?

LOUISA. Alas for this criminal wilfulness! Rather than confess his own
rashness, he accuses the wisdom of heaven!

FERDINAND (falls upon her neck, weeping bitterly). Yet once more, my
Louisa! Yet once again, as on the day of our first kiss, when you
faltered forth the name of Ferdinand, and the first endearing "Thou!"
trembled on thy burning lips. Oh! a harvest of endless and unutterable
joys seemed to me at that moment to be budding forth. There lay eternity
like a bright May-day before our eyes; thousands of golden years, fair as
brides, danced around our souls. Then was I so happy! Oh! Louisa!
Louisa! Louisa! Why hast thou used me thus?

LOUISA. Weep, Walter, weep! Your compassion will be more just towards
me than your wrath.

FERDINAND. You deceive yourself. These are not nature's tears! not that
warm delicious dew which flows like balsam on the wounded soul, and
drives the chilled current of feeling swiftly along its course. They are
solitary ice-cold drops! the awful, eternal farewell of my love! (With
fearful solemnity, laying his hand on her head.) T