“Sire,” she said, in a full, mellow voice, which slightly trembled from strong emotion—­“sire,” she repeated, trying to veil her agitation by outward calm, “I have sworn in this hour to speak the truth; I will fulfil my vow.  I will speak the truth, though you may scorn and despise me.  I will die of your contempt as one dies of a quick and deadly poison; but it is better so to die than to live as I am living.  You shall know me better, sire.  You have charged me with falsehood and hypocrisy; thank God, I can cast off that humiliating reproach!  I will speak the truth, though it bows my head with shame and casts me at your feet.  If I could die there, I would count myself most blessed.  The truth, sire, the truth! listen to it.  It is true I hated you:  you humbled my pride.  You changed me, the queen of grace and beauty, the queen of the world, into a poor, hired dancer; with your rude soldiers and police you compelled me to fulfil a contract against which my soul revolted.  I cursed you.  You separated me violently, from the man I loved, who adored me, and offered me a splendid and glorious future.  It is true I prayed to God for vengeance, but He would not hear my prayer; He punished me for my mad folly, and turned the dagger I wildly aimed at you, against my own breast.  Sire, the hate to which I swore, to which I clung as the ship-wrecked mariner clings to the plank which may save him from destruction, failed me in the hour of need, and I sank, sank down.  A day came in which the prayer of rage and revenge upon my lips was changed, in spite of myself, into blessings, and I found, with consternation and horror, that there was indeed but one step between wild hatred and passionate love, and this fatal step lies over an abyss.  I cannot tell you, sire, how much I have suffered—­how vainly I have struggled.  I have hated, I have cursed myself because I could no longer hate and curse you.  The day you left for Silesia, you said, ‘I think ever of thee.’  Oh! sire, you know not what fatal poison you poured into my ears, with what rapture and enchantment these words filled my heart.  My life was a dream; I stood under a golden canopy, drunk with joy and blessed with heavenly peace.  I saw these words, ‘I think ever of thee,’ not only in my heart, but in every flower, on every leaf, and written by the sun in the heavens, and in the stars.  I dreamed of them as one dreams of fairy palaces and heavenly melodies.  In the songs of sweet birds, in the plaudits and bravos with which the world greeted me, I heard only these celestial words, ‘I think ever of thee.’  I lived upon them during your absence, I wrote them with my glances upon your empty chair in the theatre, I fixed my eyes upon it, and for love of you I danced to it.  One night I saw in this chair, not only my golden starry words, I saw two stars from heaven; I was not prepared—­their glance was fatal.  No, sire, that was no miserable comedy, no actor’s work.  I sank unconscious, and from that hour I know one does not die from rapture, but sinks insensible.  I wept the whole night, God knows whether from shame or bliss, I cannot tell.  The next day—­yes—­then I was false and deceitful.  I stuck my stiletto in my foot, to deceive the world; only God might know that the Barbarina fainted at the sight of the king—­fainted because she felt that she no longer hated, but worshipped him.”