Courtalin, and threw myself on you, and took you round your waist (I can
still hear your little cry), and I dragged you off."

"Mamma had scarcely time to scream 'Marceline, Marceline!' when I was
there no more. He had lifted me off, and carried me away; and we were
waltzing wildly, furiously!--oh, what a waltz!--and he was saying to me:
'I love you! I adore you! You are grace and beauty itself! There is only
one pretty woman here--you; and it is I who will be your husband. I, do
you hear? I, and not another!' And I, quite suffocated with surprise,
pleasure, and emotion, allowed myself to be nearly carried by him, but I
kept begging him to speak lower. 'Anything you wish; yes, I will be your
wife; but take care--you will be heard--you will be heard.'"

"That is what I wished; and I continued, 'I love you! I adore you!'"

"Then I, absolutely breathless: 'Not so fast. I pray, not so fast; I
shall fall. I assure you everything is going round, everything is going
round. Let us stop.' 'No, no; don't let's stop. Keep on still. If we
stop your mother will separate us, and I have still so many things to
say to you--so many things, so many things. Swear to me that you will be
my wife.' 'Yes, I swear it; but enough, enough--' I was smothering. He
heard nothing. He was going, going like a madman. We had become a
hurricane, a whirlwind, a cyclone. We caused surprise and fright. No one
danced any more, but looked at us. And he held me so close, and his face
was so near my face, his lips so near my lips, that all at once I felt
myself giving way. I slipped, and let myself into his arms. A cloud
passed before my eyes; I could not speak nor think; then blankness.
Everything had disappeared before me in a vertigo not too disagreeable,
I must say. I had fainted, absolutely fainted."