MIDNIGHT.

... Why, O Sultan Akhmet! have you cast lightning into my breast? A
brother's friendship, a brother's treachery, and a brother's murder!...
What dreadful extremes! And between them there is but a step, but a
twinkling of the eye. I cannot sleep, I can think of nothing else. I am
chained to this thought, like a criminal to his stake. A bloody sea
swells, surges, and roars around me, and above gleams, instead of stars,
the lightning-flash. My soul is like a naked peak, where only birds of
prey and evil spirits assemble, to share their plunder, or to prepare
misfortune. Verkhóffsky, Verkhóffsky! what have I done to you? Why would
you tear from heaven the star of my liberty? Is it because I loved you
so tenderly? And why do you approach me stealthily and thief-like? why
do you slander--why do you betray me, by hypocrisy? You should say
plainly, "I wish your life," and I would give it freely, without a
murmur; would have laid it down a sacrifice like the son of Ibrahim,
(Abraham!) I would have forgiven you, if you had but attempted my life,
but to sell my freedom, to steal my Seltanetta from me, by burying me
alive! Villain--and you still live!

But sometimes like a dove, whose wings have been scorched in the smoke
of a fire, appears thy form to me, Seltanetta. How is it, then, that I
am no longer gay when I dream of you, as of old?...

They would part us, my love--they would give you to another, to marry me
on the grave-stone. But I will go to you--I will go to you over a bloody
carpet--I will fulfil a bloody promise, in order to possess you. Invite
not only your maiden friends to your marriage feast--invite also the
vultures and the ravens, they shall all be regaled abundantly. I will
pay a rich dower. On the pillow of my bride I will lay a heart which