AN ATHENIAN ROMANCE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXX, Issue 9229, 17 June 1893, Page 2 (Supplement)

AN ATHENIAN ROMANCE.

TRAGIC DEATH OF TWO LOVERS. A ROMANCE of Athens is told by a correspondent of the Paris Temps. For some time past an elegantly dressed and singularly beautiful young lady had been in the habit of visiting tho Acropolis, sometimes alone, but more frequently accompanied by a tall and remarkably handsome young man. The young lady was a German and her name was Mario Weber. Sho was a pensive sentimentalist and would have for her affections no other surroundings than those in which Grecian art has concentrated tho most splendid productions of tho human mind. On tho Acropolis she was delighted ; but was it art or lovo that rendered tho place so dear to her ? Probably both. She was an attach* of the household of the Priucess Royal of Russia in the capacity of a governess. During her leisure hours she visited the Acropolis. Thero she invariably found her lover, a young surgeon in tho Uroek army, with features of sculptural beauty. One day in February Mile. Weber went to the Acropolis as usual, and was surprised at not finding her lover there. As was subsequently learned, ho had promised to meet her there at noon. One of the guards gave her tho koy of tho staircase, and sho went up to the platform of the fronton. Tho guard and some strangers noticed nor standing still and gazing in tho direction of her lover's dwelling. Ho did not come. She threw herself iron the platform upon the flags below. They picked her up unconscious and carried her to the military hospital behind tho Acropolis, where sho died just as her lover was entering the place to report for duty, which probably prevented him from keeping his appointment. On learning of tho tragedy the young man became distracted an killed himself with a revolver. It has since turned out that Mario Weber was the daughter of an officer of the suite of tho Empress Frederic. She came to Athens with the Empress and was employed as governess by Princess Sophia. She was a constant visitor at the Acropolis, and it was there she first met her lover. The young couple became deeply attached to each other, but Marie, being of a melancholy and sensitive disposition, somehow got the idea into her head that her lover was tiring of her. As the sequel shows he evidently was not. lb is proposed to raise a .subscription for a monument ti» the lovers, upon whose graves the Athenian ladies placed innumerable bouquets. The other night a number of students secretly dug up the body of the young man and buried it by the side of tho remains of Marie. The next day they sent a note to the newspapers giving an account of their exploit, and adding that they "deemed it only right to unite in the earth the bodies of two lovers whose souls wore 1 united in heaven." •*"•■>.