THE SWEET-SCENTED NAME
hand—the tears which trickled mercilessly down both cheeks and along her little upturned nose. She wept and said:
"Why, oh why do you wish not to say who you are? Why do you torture me like this? Perhaps you do something very bad."
Lohengrin shrugged his shoulders as he answered:
"That depends on how you look at it. To some people my occupation may seem mean and base, and some people may despise me for it. But I do what I know how to do, and you yourself have been able to see what sort of a man I am apart from my work. If you love me you must believe in me, and even if it turned out that I was a loathsome vampire you should follow me to my tomb, for, if I see in you the most beautiful maiden upon earth, the enchanting Lady Elsa, then you, loving me in return, ought to see in me the noble knight Lohengrin, whose father Parsifal is the guardian of the Holy Grail. And though we may live in the prosaic town of Petersburg in one of the most ordinary streets, and not in one of the castles of the knights of old; though we have to live the ordinary life of every day, and cannot perform the knightly exploits of old time—our destiny has been portioned out to us by
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