_BY MAURICE MAETERLINCK_
Crown 8vo, cloth, designed cover, gilt top, 5s. net each
Translated by ALFRED SUTRO
The Life of the Bee [_Ninth Edition_
The Treasure of the Humble
With an Introduction by A. B. WALKLEY
[_Sixth Edition_
Wisdom and Destiny [_Fourth Edition_
The Buried Temple
* * * * *
Translated by
ALEXANDER TEIXEIRA DE MATTOS
The Double Garden [_Second Edition_
* * * * *
Translated by ALFRED SUTRO
Foolscap 8vo, cloth, gilt top, 3s. 6d. net
Thoughts from Maeterlinck
* * * * *
Small crown 8vo, half cloth, 3s. 6d. net each
Aglavaine and Selysette: A Drama in Five Acts
With an Introduction by J. W. MACKAIL
[_Third Edition_
Monna Vanna: A Drama in Three Acts
* * * * *
Translated by BERNARD MIALL
Sister Beatrice; and Ardiane & Barbe Bleue: Two Plays
* * * * *
Translated by
ALEXANDER TEIXEIRA DE MATTOS
Small 4to, half cloth, gilt top, 3s. 6d. net each
My Dog. With 6 Illustrations in Colour by G. VERNON
STOKES
Old-fashioned Flowers and other Open-air Essays. With
6 Illustrations in Colour by G. S. ELGOOD
[Illustration]
JOYZELLE
BY
MAURICE MAETERLINCK
TRANSLATED BY
ALEXANDER TEIXEIRA DE MATTOS
LONDON
GEORGE ALLEN, 156 CHARING CROSS ROAD
1907
[_All rights reserved_]
_Copyright in the United States of America, 1903,
by_ EUGÈNE FASQUELLE
Printed by BALLANTYNE, HANSON & CO.
At the Ballantyne Press
_CHARACTERS_
MERLIN
LANCÉOR, _Merlin's Son_
JOYZELLE
ARIELLE, _Merlin's genius, invisible to the others_
[SCENE: _Merlin's Island_
JOYZELLE
ACT I
_A Gallery in MERLIN'S Palace_
[_MERLIN is seated near ARIELLE, who is sleeping on
the steps of a marble staircase. It is night._
MERLIN.
You sleep, my Arielle, you my inner force, the neglected power
which slumbers in every soul and which I alone, till now, awaken at
will.... You sleep, my docile and familiar little fairy, and your
hair, straying like a blue mist, invisible to men, mingles with the
moon, the perfumes of the night, the rays of the stars, the roses
that shed their petals, the spreading sky, to remind us thus that
nothing separates us from any existing thing and that our thought
does not know where the light begins for which it hopes, nor where
the shadow ends which it escapes.... You are sleeping soundly and,
while you sleep, I lose all my knowledge and become like my blind
brethren, who do not yet know that on this earth there are as many
hidden gods as there are hearts that throb.... Alas, I am to them
the genius to be avoided, the wicked sorcerer in league with their
enemies!... They have no enemies, but only subjects who know not
where to find their king.... They are persuaded that my secret
virtue, which is obeyed by the plants and the stars, by water,
stone and fire and to which the future at times reveals some of its
features: they are persuaded that this new and yet so human virtue
is hidden in philtres, in horrible charms, in hellish herbs and
awful signs.... No, it is in myself, even as it resides in them; it
is in you, my frail Arielle, in you who were once in me.... I have
taken two or three bolder steps in the dark.... I have done a little
earlier what they will do later.... All things will be subject to
them when they have learnt at last to revive your goodwill, even as I
have revived it.... But it were vain for me to tell them that you are
sleeping here and to point to your dazzling grace: they would not
see you.... Each one of them must find you within himself; each one
of them must open as I do the tomb of his life and come to awake you
as I awake you now....
[_He bends over ARIELLE and kisses her._
ARIELLE.
(_Waking._) Master!...
MERLIN.
This is the hour, Arielle, when love must watch.... I shall often
trouble your sleep in these coming days....
ARIELLE.
My sleep was so long that I am always relapsing into it; but I feel
stronger and become happier at each new awakening that your thought
imposes on me....
MERLIN.
Whither are you taking my son and when shall I see him again?...
ARIELLE.
I was following him with my eyes in my attentive dream.... He is
approaching us.... He thinks that he is lost; and his destiny leads
him where happiness awaits him....
MERLIN.
Will he know me?... It is many years since the prescribed proof
exacted that we should live as strangers to each other; and I am
eager to be able to embrace him as I did long ago, when he was a
child....
ARIELLE.
No, fate must be allowed to decide freely; nor may the proof be
falsified by the love of a father of whose existence he must not
know....
MERLIN.
But now that Joyzelle is here, close to us; now that he is coming
towards her, does the future become more clear, can you read further
into it?...
ARIELLE.
(_Gazing upon the sea and the night, in a sort of trance._) I read in
it what I read from the first moment.... Your son's fate is wholly
inscribed within a circle of love. If he love, if he be loved with a
wondrous love, which should be that of all men, but which is becoming
so rare that at present it seems to them a dazzling folly; if he
love, if he be loved with an ingenuous and yet clear-seeing love,
with a love simple and pure and all-powerful as the mountain stream,
with an heroic love, yet one that shall be gentler than a flower,
with a love which takes all and gives back more than it takes,
which never hesitates, which is not deceived; a love which nothing
disconcerts and nothing repels, a love which hears and sees naught
save a mysterious happiness invisible to all beside, which perceives
it everywhere, in every form and every trial, and which, with a
smile, will even commit crime to claim it.... If he obtain that love,
which exists somewhere and is waiting for him in a heart that I seem
to have recognized, his life will be longer, fairer and happier than
that of other men. But, if he do not find it before the month is
past, for the circle is closing; if Joyzelle's love be not that which
the future holds out to him from the high skies; if the flame do not
burn its full span, if a regret veil or a doubt obscure it, then
death triumphs and your son is lost....
MERLIN.
Ay, for all men the hour of love is an important hour!...
ARIELLE.
For Lancéor, alas, it is the inexorable hour!... Within these next
few days he will reach the summit of his life. With groping hands, he
touches happiness and the tomb.... He is dependent entirely on the
last steps which he is taking and on the act of the virgin who is
coming to meet him....
MERLIN.
And if Joyzelle be not she whom fate selects?...
ARIELLE.
Indeed, I fear that the proof which we are about to attempt is the
only one which it offers; but man must never lose courage in face of
the future....
MERLIN.
Why attempt the proof if it be uncertain?...
ARIELLE.
If we do not offer it, fate will offer it; it is inevitable, but it
is left to chance; and that is why I try to direct its course....
MERLIN.
And if he love Joyzelle and she do not love him with the love which
fate demands?...
ARIELLE.
Then we shall have to intervene more openly.
MERLIN.
How?
ARIELLE.
I will try to learn.
MERLIN.
Arielle, I conjure you, as this concerns the dearest being, much
dearer than myself; as I have only one son and he can become what
we well know that I could never be: is it not possible to make an
unexampled, an almost desperate effort with regard to the future; to
violate time; to snatch from the years, even were they to revenge
themselves upon us two, the secret which they conceal so strictly and
which contains much more than our own life and our own happiness?...
ARIELLE.
No, strive as I may, I can reach no further.... The future is a world
limited by ourselves, in which we discover only that which concerns
us and sometimes, by chance, that which interests those whom we
love the most.... I see very clearly all that unfolds itself round
Lancéor, until his road meets Joyzelle's road. But around Joyzelle
the years are veiled. It is an effulgent veil, a veil of light,
but it hides the days as profoundly as a veil of darkness.... It
interrupts life. Then, beyond the veil, I again find happiness and
death awaiting him, like two equal, indifferent, inscrutable hosts;
and I cannot tell which is the nearer, the more imperious.... It is
not possible for me to know if Joyzelle is the predestined one....
Everything promises that it is she, but nothing confirms it.... Her
face is stretched towards the coming years ... and, call to her as I
may, with all my might, she does not answer, does not turn her head.
Nothing can distract her; and I have never seen her features, which
I can only imagine.... One sign alone is certain: it is that of the
very sharp and cruel proofs which she will have to overcome.... By
these proofs alone we shall know her....
MERLIN.
And, therefore, starting from this point which I can surmount, we
must submit to unknown powers, question facts like other men, await
their reply and try to conquer them if they threaten harm to those
whom we love....
ARIELLE.
But here they come, in the breaking dawn.... Let us hasten away, they
are coming near.... Let us leave to their destiny, which is beginning
its work, the solitude and the silence which it demands.
[_Exeunt MERLIN and ARIELLE. A few moments after,
while the daylight swiftly increases, JOYZELLE and
LANCÉOR enter from opposite sides and meet._
JOYZELLE.
(_Stopping, astonished, before LANCÉOR._) What are you seeking?
LANCÉOR.
I do not know where I am.... I was seeking a shelter.... Who are you?
JOYZELLE.
My name is Joyzelle.
LANCÉOR.
Joyzelle.... I am saying the name.... It is as caressing as a wing,
the breath of a flower, a whisper of gladness, a ray of light....
It describes you completely, it sings in the heart, it lights the
lips....
JOYZELLE.
And you, who are you?
LANCÉOR.
I no longer myself know who I am.... A few days ago, my name was
Lancéor; I knew where I was and I knew myself.... To-day, I seek
myself, I grope within myself and all around me and I wander in the
mist, amid mirages....
JOYZELLE.
What mist? What mirages?... How long have you been on this island?
LANCÉOR.
Since yesterday....
JOYZELLE.
Strange, they did not tell me....
LANCÉOR.
No one saw me.... I was wandering on the shore, I was in despair....
JOYZELLE.
Oh! Why?...
LANCÉOR.
I was very far from here, I was very far from him, when a letter told
me that my old father was dying.... I took ship at once. We were long
at sea; then, in the first port at which the ship put in, I learnt
that it was too late, that my father was no more.... I continued my
voyage, at least to be on the scene of his last thoughts and carry
out his last wishes....
JOYZELLE.
Why are you here?
LANCÉOR.
Why? I do not know, nor do I know how.... The sea was very still
and the sky was clear.... We saw only the water slumbering in the
azure.... Suddenly, without warning, the waves were invaded by thick
blue mists.... They rose like a veil, which clung to our hands, to
the rigging, to our faces.... Then the wind blew, our anchor broke
loose and the blind ship, driven by a current that made her timbers
creak, arrived towards evening in the unknown harbour of this
unexpected island.... Sad and disheartened, I landed on the beach; I
fell asleep in a cave overlooking the sea; and, when I awoke, the fog
had lifted and I saw the ship disappear like a radiant wing on the
horizon of the waves.
JOYZELLE.
What had happened?
LANCÉOR.
I do not know.... I would have tried to follow her, but I could find
no boat in the harbour.... I must wait, therefore, until another
vessel passes....
JOYZELLE.
That is curious.... It is like myself....
LANCÉOR.
Like you?...
JOYZELLE.
Yes, I too came to the island through a thick fog.... But I was
shipwrecked....
LANCÉOR.
When was that? And how?... Where do you come from, Joyzelle?...
JOYZELLE.
I was coming from another island....
LANCÉOR.
Where were you going?
JOYZELLE.
Where some one was awaiting me....
LANCÉOR.
Who?
JOYZELLE.
One whom they had thought right to choose for me....
LANCÉOR.
Were you betrothed?...
JOYZELLE.
Yes.
LANCÉOR.
Do you love him?...
JOYZELLE.
No.
LANCÉOR.
But then?...
JOYZELLE.
My mother wished it....
LANCÉOR.
Do you intend to obey her?
JOYZELLE.
No.
LANCÉOR.
Ah, that is well!... I like that!... And my father, at the moment of
his death, wished that I also should choose her whom he had chosen
for me.... He had his reasons, very deep and serious reasons, it
appears.... And, as he wished it and as he is no longer alive, I must
obey him....
JOYZELLE.
Why?
LANCÉOR.
We cannot evade the wishes of the dead.
JOYZELLE.
Why?
LANCÉOR.
They can no longer be altered.... We must have pity, we must respect
them....
JOYZELLE.
No....
LANCÉOR.
You would not obey?...
JOYZELLE.
No.
LANCÉOR.
Joyzelle!... This is horrible!...
JOYZELLE.
No, the dead are horrible, if they want us to love those whom we do
not love....
LANCÉOR.
Joyzelle!... I am afraid of you....
JOYZELLE.
I said.... What did I say?... Perhaps I was too quick....
LANCÉOR.
Joyzelle, your eyes are moist at the thought of the dead and belie
your words....
JOYZELLE.
No, it is not for them.... Perhaps I was harsh.... And yet, they are
wrong.
LANCÉOR.
Let us speak no more of the dead.... You have not told me how your
shipwreck....
JOYZELLE.
We lost our way in a thick fog.... A fog so thick that it filled our
hands like white feathers.... The pilot mistook the course.... He
thought he saw a beacon.... The ship struck upon a hidden reef....
But no one perished.... The waves bore me away; and then I saw
the blue water glide before my eyes as though I were sinking in a
stifling sky.... I went down and down.... Then some one caught hold
of me and I lost consciousness....
LANCÉOR.
Who caught hold of you?...
JOYZELLE.
The lord of this island.
LANCÉOR.
And who is this lord?...
JOYZELLE.
He is an old man who wanders like a restless shade about this marble
palace....
LANCÉOR.
If I had been there!...
JOYZELLE.
What would you have done?...
LANCÉOR.
I should have saved you!...
JOYZELLE.
Was I not saved?...
LANCÉOR.
It is not the same thing!... You would not have suffered, nothing
would have come to you.... I should have carried you on the crest of
the waves.... Ah, I do not know how.... Like a cup full of precious
pearls, of which not one must be touched by a shadow; like a flower
of the dawn, from which we fear to shake a single dewdrop.... When I
think of the dangers which you, so fair, so fragile, ran among the
cruel rocks, in that old man's arms!... What he did was fine; he did
the impossible.... But it was not enough.... How did you reach the
shore at last?...
JOYZELLE.
I awoke lying on the sands.... The old man was there. Then he had me
carried to this palace....
LANCÉOR.
Is he king of this island?...
JOYZELLE.
The island is almost desert, one sees none but a few servants who
move about in silence.... He can have for his subjects only the
trees, the flowers and the happy birds with which the island seems
filled....
LANCÉOR.
What he did was well done....
JOYZELLE.
He is good and kind; and he received me as my father himself could
not have received me.... Yet I do not like him....
LANCÉOR.
Why?
JOYZELLE.
I believe he loves me....
LANCÉOR.
What!... He dares!... No, it is not possible, or else the years no
longer have the weight they should have and reason escapes us when
death draws near....
JOYZELLE.
And yet I fear it.... He gave me to understand.... He is strange and
sad.... They say he has a son who is very far from here, who is lost,
perhaps.... He is always thinking of him.... When he thinks that he
will see him again, his face lights up, he.... Here he is!...
[_Enter MERLIN._
MERLIN.
I was looking for you, Joyzelle.... (_Turning to Lancéor, with a
threatening glance._) As for you, I know who you are and I know the
reasons that have brought you to this island, the trick of this
pretended shipwreck and the name of the enemy who sent you....
LANCÉOR.
Me?... But it was a mere accident that flung me on this coast....
MERLIN.
Let us waste no phrases.
JOYZELLE.
What has he done?
MERLIN.
He intended, alas, to do the basest thing that man can do: to betray
kindness, deceive friendship and sell to the enemy the too generous
host who was going to welcome him....
JOYZELLE.
No!
MERLIN.
Why? Do you know him?
JOYZELLE.
Yes.
MERLIN.
Since when?
JOYZELLE.
Since I first saw him.
MERLIN.
And when did you see him?
JOYZELLE.
When he entered this room....
MERLIN.
That is hardly....
JOYZELLE.
It is enough.
MERLIN.
No, Joyzelle, and soon proofs and facts will show you that it is not
enough and that an honest look, an innocent smile and ingenuous words
often conceal more dangerous snares than those of thankless old age
or of love that has but little hope....
JOYZELLE.
What do you mean to do?
MERLIN.
I am waiting for the final certainty; and then I shall do what it is
lawful and necessary to do to remove all fear of an enemy who would
stop at nothing. The pitiless measures which I shall take concern
your safety as much as my own; for the same plots surround us both
and we are united by fate.... I can tell you no more to-day; have
confidence in me; perhaps you already know that your happiness is
mine....
JOYZELLE.
You saved my life, I remember that....
MERLIN.
You remember it without any kindliness: but I hope that one day
you will do me justice.... (_To LANCÉOR._) As for you, go. The
information which I have received is not open to doubt. When the
facts which I fear have confirmed it, I shall act. Meanwhile, you are
my prisoner. You will be shown the part of the palace reserved for
you. If you go beyond the limits laid down, you become your own judge
and pronounce your own sentence. There will be no appeal. Go, my
orders are given....
LANCÉOR.
I obey, but only until you recognize your error. We shall meet soon,
Joyzelle....
MERLIN.
No, bid her farewell; for it is doubtful if you will ever see her
again.... Nevertheless, Joyzelle, chance may bring you again in this
man's presence. In that case, fly from him; your life and his depend
most strictly on your prompt flight. If I learn that you have seen
each other, you are irrevocably lost.... (_To LANCÉOR._) Do you
promise to fly from her?
LANCÉOR.
If her life is at stake, yes.
MERLIN.
And you, Joyzelle?
JOYZELLE.
No.
ACT II
_A wild, neglected garden, full of weeds and
brambles. On the right, a very high and gloomy wall,
pierced by a railed gate._
[_JOYZELLE is discovered in the garden, alone._
JOYZELLE.
This is the garden which no one visits. The sun does not enter here;
the poor wild flowers upon which men wage war because they are not
beautiful here await death; and the birds are silent. Here are
the violet, which has lost its perfume, the trembling, shrinking
buttercup and the scarlet poppy, which sheds its petals without
ceasing.... Here are the scabious begging for a little water, the
deadly spurge hiding its green blossoms, the blue campanula silently
shaking its useless bells.... I know you all, you humble and despised
flowers, so good and so ugly!... You could be beautiful; it needs
scarce anything: a ray of happiness, a minute's grace, a bolder
smile to attract the bee.... But no eye sees you, no hand sows you,
no hand gathers you; and I have come among you to be also alone....
How gloomy everything looks!... The grass is neglected and parched,
the leaves are sick, the old trees dying; and spring itself and
the dew of dawn are afraid lest they should grow sorrowful in this
solitude....
[_LANCÉOR appears behind the railed gate._
LANCÉOR.
Joyzelle!...
JOYZELLE.
Lancéor!...
LANCÉOR.
Joyzelle!...
JOYZELLE.
Go away!... Go away!... Take care!... It is death if he sees you!...
LANCÉOR.
He will not see us; he is very far from here.
JOYZELLE.
Where is he?...
LANCÉOR.
I saw him go away. I watched his departure from the top of that tower
in which I am a prisoner.... He is at the other end of the island,
near the blue forest that shuts in the horizon....
JOYZELLE.
But he may return; or some one will tell him.... Go away, go away, I
say!... Your life is at stake!...
LANCÉOR.
The palace is deserted; I have gone through the rooms, the gardens
and the courts, the long box hedges, the marble staircases....
JOYZELLE.
Go away, it is only a trap.... He has a design upon your life; I know
it, he said so.... He suspects that I love you.... He is only seeking
an excuse for what he would like to do.... Go away!... As it is, you
have done too much....
LANCÉOR.
No.
JOYZELLE.
If you do not go away, then I shall go.
LANCÉOR.
If you go, Joyzelle, I shall remain at this gate until night brings
him back to the palace.... He will find me on this forbidden
threshold.... I have passed the limits assigned to me; I have
therefore disobeyed him and I wish him to see it and I wish him to
know it!...
JOYZELLE.
Lancéor, have pity! I entreat you, Lancéor!... You are risking all
our happiness!... Do not think only of yourself!... I will go where
you please, if you will leave this gate!... We shall see each other
elsewhere, later, another day.... We must choose the time, we must
take care, we must make our preparations.... See, I am stretching out
my arms to you ... what would you have me do?... What must I promise
you?...
LANCÉOR.
Open the gate.
JOYZELLE.
No, no, no, I cannot....
LANCÉOR.
Open, open, Joyzelle, if you would have me live....
JOYZELLE.
Why do you wish me to open?...
LANCÉOR.
I want to see you closer, I want to touch your hands which I have not
yet touched, to look at you once more as I looked at you on the first
day.... Open, or I am determined to be undone; I shall not go away....
JOYZELLE.
Will you go away then?...
LANCÉOR.
I promise you, Joyzelle.... As soon as you open the gate, before a
swallow, before a thought has time to hasten from wherever it may be
to surprise my hand as it touches yours.... I beseech you, Joyzelle:
this is too cruel.... I am standing at this gate like a blind
beggar.... I can see only your shadow moving among the leaves....
These bars are hateful and hide your face.... One look alone,
Joyzelle, in which I shall see you wholly; and then I will go like a
robber flying with a great treasure dragging noisily behind him....
No one will know and we shall be happy....
JOYZELLE.
Lancéor, this is terrible!... I never tremble, but I am trembling
to-day.... Perhaps it means your life; and it already means mine....
What is that light which rises so quickly?... It has come to threaten
us, it is going to betray us!...
LANCÉOR.
No, no, it is the sun rising behind the wall.... It is the innocent
sun, the good May sun, which has come to delight us.... Open, then,
open quickly: each minute that passes adds its dangers to the dangers
which you fear.... A single movement, Joyzelle; a turn of your hand;
and you really open the gates of life to me! (_JOYZELLE turns the
key; the gate opens; LANCÉOR crosses the threshold._)
LANCÉOR.
(_Taking JOYZELLE in his arms._) Joyzelle!...
JOYZELLE.
I am here!...
LANCÉOR.
I hold your hands and your eyes, your hair and your lips, in the
same kiss and at the same moment, all the gifts of love which I have
never had and all its presence!... My arms are so surprised that they
cannot carry them; and my whole life cannot contain them.... Do not
turn away your face, do not draw back your lips!...
JOYZELLE.
It is not to escape you, but to be closer to you....
LANCÉOR.
Do not turn your head; do not deprive me of a shadow of your lashes,
a gleam of your eyes: it is not the hours, but the very minutes that
threaten our happiness....
JOYZELLE.
I was seeking your smile....
LANCÉOR.
And your own meets mine in the first kiss that passes between our
lips to unite our destinies.... It seems to me to-day as though I
had always seen you and always clasped you and as though I were
repeating, in reality, on the threshold of paradise, what I did on
earth when embracing your shadow....
JOYZELLE.
I used to embrace you at night when I embraced my dreams....
LANCÉOR.
I knew no doubt....
JOYZELLE.
I knew no fear....
LANCÉOR.
And everything is granted me....
JOYZELLE.
And everything makes me happy!...
LANCÉOR.
How deep your eyes are and how full of confidence!...
JOYZELLE.
And how clear are yours and full of certainty!...
LANCÉOR.
How well I recognize them!...
JOYZELLE.
And how well I know yours!...
LANCÉOR.
Your hands rest on my shoulders just as when I lay waiting for them
without daring to wake....
JOYZELLE.
And your arm is round my neck just as it was....
LANCÉOR.
It was thus that your eyelids used to close at the breath of love....
JOYZELLE.
And it was thus, too, that the tears came to your eyes when they
opened....
LANCÉOR.
When happiness is so great....
JOYZELLE.
Unhappiness does not come so long as love binds it....
LANCÉOR.
Do you love me?...
JOYZELLE.
Yes....
LANCÉOR.
Oh, how you said "yes!"... "Yes" from the depths of your heart, from
the depths of your thought, from the depths of your very soul!... I
knew it, perhaps; but it had to be said; and our kisses themselves
did not count without it.... Now it is enough, it will feed my life;
all the hatred on earth could not wipe it away nor thirty years of
distress exhaust it!... I am in the light and the spring overwhelms
me!... I look up to the sky and the garden awakens!... Do you hear
the birds making the trees sing and repeating your smile and that
wonderful "yes;" and do you see the rays that caress your hair like
diamonds sparkling among the flames and the thousands of flowers that
bend over us to surprise in our eyes the mystery of a love which they
did not know?...
JOYZELLE.
(_Opening her eyes._) There was nothing here but poor, dead
flowers....
[_She looks around her, stupefied; for, since
Lancéor's entrance, without their noticing it, the
gloomy garden has become gradually transfigured by
magic. The wild plants, the weeds that poisoned it
have grown and each, according to its kind, has
increased its flowers, blooming to a prodigious size.
The puny bindweed has become a powerful creeper,
whose wonderful blossoms engarland the trees weighed
down with ripe fruits and peopled with miraculous
birds. The pale pimpernel is now a tall shrub of
a warm and tender green, with bursting flowers
larger than lilies. The pale scabious has lengthened
its stalks, from which spring tufts like mauve
heliotrope.... Butterflies flit to and fro, the bees
hum, the birds sing, the fruits swing and fall, the
light streams down. The perspective of the garden
has become infinitely extended; and the audience
now sees, to the right, a marble basin, half-hidden
behind a hedge of oleanders and turnsoles cut into
arches._
LANCÉOR.
There is nothing here now but the flowers of life!... Look!...
They are coming down, they are streaming down upon us!... They are
bursting on the branches, they bend the trees, they entangle our
steps, they press against one another, they crush one another, they
open out wide, one within the other, they blind the leaves, they
dazzle the grass; I know none of them and the spring is drunk; I have
never seen flowers so disordered, so resplendent!...
JOYZELLE.
Where are we?...
LANCÉOR.
We are in the garden which you would not open to my love....
JOYZELLE.
What have we done?
LANCÉOR.
I have given the kiss that is given but once; and you have spoken the
word that is never respoken....
JOYZELLE.
(_Swooning._) Lancéor, I am mad, or else we are going to die....
LANCÉOR.
(_Supporting her._) Joyzelle, you are turning pale and your dear arms
are pressing me as though you feared that a hidden enemy....
JOYZELLE.
Have you not seen...?
LANCÉOR.
What?
JOYZELLE.
We are caught in a trap and those flowers are betraying us.... The
birds were silent, the trees were dead, there was nothing here but
weeds, which no one dug up.... I recognize them all and remember
their names, which still remind me of their former wretchedness....
Here is the buttercup, laden with golden disks; the poor pale
pimpernel is changed into a bush of lilies; the tall scabious are
dropping their petals over our heads; and those purple bells which
shoot up over the wall to tell the world that they have seen us, are
the foxglove, which was pining in the shade.... It is as though the
sky had shed its flowers.... Do not look at them; they are here to
ruin us.... Ah, I am wrong to seek and I should have understood!...
He muttered confused threats.... Yes, yes, I knew he had spells
at his command.... They told me so one day, but I did not believe
them.... Now it is his time; it is well, it is too late; but perhaps
we shall see that love also knows....
[_A horn sounds._
LANCÉOR.
Hark!...
JOYZELLE.
It is the horses' hoofs and the horn sounding the recall.... He is
returning. Fly!...
LANCÉOR.
But you?...
JOYZELLE.
I have nothing to fear, but his hateful love.... Go!...
LANCÉOR.
I will stay with you; and, if his violence....
JOYZELLE.
You will ruin us both.... Go!... Hide there, behind those spurges....
Whatever he may say, whatever he may do, do not show yourself and
fear nothing for me: I shall know how to defend myself.... Go!... He
is coming!... Go!... I hear his voice....
[_LANCÉOR hides behind a cluster of tall spurges. The
railed gate opens and MERLIN enters the garden._
MERLIN.
Is he here, Joyzelle?...
JOYZELLE.
No.
MERLIN.
Those flowers do not lie; they inform against love.... They were your
keepers and have been faithful to me.... I am not cruel and I forgive
more than once.... You can save him by pointing to the bush which
hides him.... (_JOYZELLE stands motionless._) Do not look at me with
those eyes of hatred.... You will love me one day, for love goes by
dark and generous paths.... Do you not believe that I will keep my
promises?...
JOYZELLE.
No!...
MERLIN.
I have done nothing, Joyzelle, to deserve such hatred or such an
insult.... Since you wish it, I will let fate take its course....
[_A cry of pain is heard from behind the cluster of
spurges._
JOYZELLE.
(_Rushing behind the cluster._) Lancéor!...
LANCÉOR.
Joyzelle!... I am hurt.... An adder has stung me....
JOYZELLE.
It is not an adder.... It is a horrible animal.... It is lifting
itself against you!... Let me crush it underfoot.... It is
foaming.... It is dead.... Lancéor, you are turning pale!... Lean
on my neck.... Fear nothing, I am strong.... Show me your wound....
Lancéor, I am here.... Lancéor, answer me!...
MERLIN.
(_Approaching them and examining the bite._)
The wound is mortal.... The poison is very slow and its action is
strange.... Do not despair.... I alone know the remedy....
JOYZELLE.
Lancéor! Lancéor! Answer me! Answer me!...
MERLIN.
He will not answer, he is sound asleep.... Withdraw, Joyzelle, unless
you wish this mere sleep to end in the grave.... Withdraw, Joyzelle:
you will not be betraying him; you will be warding off death....
JOYZELLE.
First make the sign that shall restore him to life!
MERLIN.
(_Looking at her gravely._) I will make the sign, Joyzelle.
(_JOYZELLE exit slowly, turns back and withdraws at last, before a
grave and imperious gesture from MERLIN. MERLIN, left alone with
LANCÉOR, kneels down beside him to dress his wound._) There, have no
fear, my son, there, it is for your happiness; and may all my heart
open in the first kiss that I am able to give you.
[_He embraces him long and fervently. Enter ARIELLE._
ARIELLE.
Master, we must hasten and lay the new trap.
MERLIN.
Will he fall into it?
ARIELLE.
Man always falls into a trap, when his instinct leads him; but let us
veil his reason, let us change his character; we shall behold a sight
that will make us smile....
MERLIN.
I shall not smile, for the sight is a sad one and I do not like
to see a noble and beautiful love, a love that believes itself
predestined and unparalleled, thus reduced to nothing, at the first
proof, in the arms of a phantom....
ARIELLE.
Lancéor is not free, for he is no longer himself and I have abandoned
him to his instinct during the past hour....
MERLIN.
He ought to have conquered it....
ARIELLE.
You speak like that because I am submissive: but remember the time
when I was less docile.
MERLIN.
You think yourself very docile because I have conquered you; but you
retain some shadow even in the light in which I have been able to
train you and I find in you a certain cruelty that takes too great a
pleasure in men's weaknesses....
ARIELLE.
Men's weaknesses are often necessary to the purposes of life....
MERLIN.
What will happen if he yields?...
ARIELLE.
He will yield: it is written. The question is if Joyzelle's love will
surmount the proof.
MERLIN.
And do you not know?
ARIELLE.
No; she has a mind which is not wholly within my sphere, which
depends upon a principle which I do not know, which I have never seen
except in her and which changes the future.... I have tried to subdue
her; but she obeys me only in little things. But it is time to
act. Go and find Joyzelle and leave your son to me.... Go, lest you
should spoil the proof.... I shall revive him, I shall renew and make
still deeper and blinder the intoxication into which I have plunged
him; and I shall become visible to his eyes in order to deceive his
kisses....
MERLIN.
(_In a voice of smiling reproach._) Arielle....
ARIELLE.
Go, let me be.... You know that kisses given to poor Arielle pass
like the flash of a wing that closes over running water....
[_MERLIN retires to a distance. ARIELLE goes towards
the marble basin; and there, half-hidden behind the
hedge of oleanders, she half opens the veils that
cover her, sits on the grassy steps that surround the
basin and slowly unties her long hair, while LANCÉOR
awakes, groping with his hands._
LANCÉOR.
Where did I fall asleep? Some strange poison has entered my
heart.... I am no longer the same and my mind is wandering.... I
am struggling against the intoxication and I do not know where I
am going.... (_Catches sight of ARIELLE._) But who is that woman
behind the oleanders? (_Approaching the hedge and looking._) She is
beautiful!... She is half unclad and her curved foot, like a prudent
flower, is trying the water, which smiles and encircles it with
pearls.... She raises her arms to bind her hair; and the light of the
sky glides between her shoulders, like gleaming water over marble
wings. (_Approaching closer._) She is beautiful, she is beautiful!...
I must see her.... She is turning round and one of her bare breasts,
peeping through her tresses, adds rays to the rays that strike it....
She is listening, she hears; and her wide-open eyes are questioning
the roses.... She has seen me, she hides herself, she is going to
fly.... (_Passing through the hedge._) No, no, do not fly from
me!... I have seen you.... It is too late!... (_Taking ARIELLE in his
arms._) I want to know the name of so pure a vision, which plunges
into darkness all that I have loved!... I want to know also what too
faithful shadow, what profound retreat concealed the marvel which I
hold in my arms!... What trees, what caves, what towers, what walls
were able to stifle the brilliancy of that flesh, the fragrance of
that life, the fire of those eyes?... Where were you hiding, you whom
even a blind man would find without difficulty in a holiday crowd?...
No, do not thrust me away; this is not the passion, the intoxication
of a moment; it is the lasting dizziness of love!... I am at your
knees; I humbly embrace them.... I give myself to you alone.... I am
only yours.... I ask for nothing but a kiss from your lips to forget
the rest and seal the future.... Bow down your head.... I see it
bending towards me, I see it consenting; and I call for the token
which nothing can efface henceforth.... (_He kisses her passionately.
A cry of distress is heard from behind the bushes._) What is it?...
[_ARIELLE releases herself from his embrace, flies
and disappears. Enter JOYZELLE._
JOYZELLE.
(_Dismayed._) Lancéor!...
LANCÉOR.
Why, where do you come from, Joyzelle?
JOYZELLE.
I have seen and heard....
LANCÉOR.
Well, what?... What have you seen?... Look around you: there is
nothing to see.... The oleanders are in flower, the water in the
basin sleeps, the doves are cooing, the water-lilies are opening
their petals: that is all that I see, all that you can see....
JOYZELLE.
Do you love her?
LANCÉOR.
Whom?...
JOYZELLE.
The woman who has just fled....
LANCÉOR.
How should I love her?... I had never seen her.... The woman was
there; I happened to pass.... She gave a loud scream.... I ran up....
She seemed to have lost her footing and, as I held out my hand to
her, she gave me the kiss which you heard....
JOYZELLE.
Is it really you speaking?
LANCÉOR.
Yes, look at me: it is really and wholly I.... Come nearer, touch me
if you doubt it....
JOYZELLE.
The proof was terrible; but this is mortal....
LANCÉOR.
What?...
JOYZELLE.
Was this the first time that you saw that woman?...
LANCÉOR.
Yes.
JOYZELLE.
I shall not speak of it again.... I shall understand, perhaps; in any
case, I forgive....
LANCÉOR.
There is nothing to forgive.
JOYZELLE.
What do you say?...
LANCÉOR.
I say that I have no need for the pardon with which you overwhelm a
fault which I have not committed.
JOYZELLE.
Which you have not committed?... Then I did not see what I saw nor
hear what I heard?...
LANCÉOR.
No.
JOYZELLE.
Lancéor!...
LANCÉOR.
Lancéor! Lancéor!... If you called me by my name for a thousand years
and more, it would alter nothing in what was nothing!...
JOYZELLE.
I do not know what is passing between your happiness and mine.... Oh,
look at me and touch my hands, that I may know where you are!... Oh,
if you speak like that, then it was not you whom I saw this morning
in the wonderful garden where I gave away my soul!... No, there is
something that is mocking our strength.... It is not possible that
all is thus lost because of a single word.... I am seeking, I am all
astray.... I saw you, then, and saw all truth and all trust, as one
suddenly sees the sea between the trees!... I was sure, I knew....
Love did not deceive me.... It deceives me now!... It cannot be that
all this should crumble away for a yea or a nay.... No, no, I will
not have it!... Come, it is not too late; we have not yet lost our
happiness.... It is all in our hands, which close upon it.... What
you have just done was mad, perhaps.... I forget it, I laugh at it,
I saw nothing, I tell you!... It does not exist: you can wipe it out
with a word.... You well know, as I do, that love has words which
nothing can resist and that the greatest fault, when confessed in a
loyal kiss, becomes a truth more beautiful than innocence.... Speak
that word to me; give me that kiss; confess the truth, confess what
I saw, what I heard; and all will again become pure as it was and I
shall recover all that you gave me....
LANCÉOR.
I have said what I have said; if you do not believe me, go away, you
annoy me....
JOYZELLE.
Look me in the face.... Do you love her, since you lie like that?...
LANCÉOR.
No, I love no one and you less than the others....
JOYZELLE.
Lancéor!... What have I done?... Perhaps, without knowing....
LANCÉOR.
Nothing, it is not that.... But I am not what you thought and I do
not care to be.... I am like other men; I wish you to know it and
make the best of it.... I want all our promises to be scattered to
the wind of some new dream, like this dead leaf which I crumple in
my hand.... Ah, the love of women!... Well, so much the worse for
them!... I shall live like other men in a faithless world, where no
one loves, where all oaths yield to the first test.... Ah, tears!...
They were bound to come, I expected them!... You are hard, I know,
and your tears are scarce.... I count them drop by drop!... You did
not love me!... Love which comes thus, at the first call, is not that
on which happiness is based.... In any case, it is not that which I
hoped for.... More tears!... They flow too late!... You did not love
me, I did not love you.... Another would have said.... Ah, another
would have known!... But you, no, no; go away!... Go away, go away, I
say!...
[_JOYZELLE moves away silently, sobbing. When she has
taken a few steps, she turns back, hesitates, looks
sadly at LANCÉOR and disappears with a suppressed
cry_, "I love you!..." _LANCÉOR, overwhelmed,
bewildered, staggers away and leans against the trunk
of a tree._
LANCÉOR.
What have I done?... I am obeying ... what?... I do not know.... What
have I said?... It is not I speaking.... I have lost happiness,
the present, the future.... I am no longer my own master.... I do
what I hate to do... I do not know who I am.... Joyzelle!... Ah, my
Joyzelle!...
[_He falls, sobbing, with his face to the ground._
ACT III
SCENE I.--_A Room in the Palace_
[_LANCÉOR is discovered before a mirror. He appears
emaciated, bent, aged, unrecognizable._
LANCÉOR.
Who am I? In a few hours I have aged thirty years.... The poison is
doing its work and sorrow too.... I see myself with terror in this
mirror which shows me the wreck of myself.... Yet, it does not lie.
(_Going to another mirror._) For here is another that says the same
thing ... unless they all lie, even as everything seems to lie and
to mock at me in this extraordinary island. (_He feels his face._)
Alas, they are right!... These wrinkles which my hand follows are not
formed by their malevolent crystal.... They are in my flesh!... And
these hideous blemishes which will not come away, I feel them under
my fingers.... These bent shoulders refuse to straighten themselves;
my hair is colourless, like pale ashes after the flame has died away;
my eyes, even my eyes, hardly recognize themselves.... They used to
open, to laugh, to welcome life.... Now they blink and their glances
avoid me like the glances of a knave.... Not a thing remains to me
of what I was; my mother would pass by me and not see me.... It is
finished.... (_Drawing the curtain of a tall window._) Let us hide
ourselves; let complete dusk cover up all this!... (_He lies down in
a dark corner of the room._) I give up, I consent.... I have done
what love can never forgive.... I am losing my life at last, as I
have lost Joyzelle.... She will not see me again, I shall not see her
again....
[_A door opens. Enter JOYZELLE._
JOYZELLE.
(_Surprised by the darkness, she stands a moment on the threshold.
Then, casting her eyes around the room, she perceives LANCÉOR
lying in a corner and rushes towards him with outstretched arms._)
Lancéor!... Ah, these last three days I have lived like a mad thing!
I looked for you everywhere. I went to the tower.... The doors were
closed, the windows too. I crouched on the sill to catch a glimpse of
your shadow, I called, I screamed, no one answered.... But how pale
you are, how thin!... I am talking to you without thinking.... Give
me your two hands....
LANCÉOR.
You know me?...
JOYZELLE.
Why not?
LANCÉOR.
But then I am not...? I am still myself?... Look at me!... What
trace of me remains?... (_Going to the window and tearing aside the
curtain._) Look! Look!... What do you know me by?... Tell me, is it
here?... Is it my hands, my eyes, my clothes, perhaps?...
JOYZELLE.
(_Looking at him and throwing herself, weeping, in his arms._) Oh,
how you have suffered!...
LANCÉOR.
I have suffered, yes, I have suffered!... I deserved it but too
well, after what I said, after what I did!... But that is not what
matters or overwhelms me.... I would willingly die, if you could
but see once more, were it only for the flash of an eye, that which
you once loved.... I cling to myself, to the little that remains of
me.... I should like to hide myself, to bury my distress; and yet
I want you to see me first, so that you may know at last what you
would have to love, if you still loved me.... Come, come, nearer,
nearer.... Not nearer to me, but nearer to the rays that shine upon
my wretchedness.... Look at these wrinkles, these dead eyes, these
lips.... No, no, do not approach, lest disgust.... I am less like
myself than if I had returned from a world which life had never
visited.... You do not recoil? You are not astonished?... You do not
see me as these mirrors see me?...
JOYZELLE.
I see that you are pale and that you seem tired.... Do not put
away my arms.... Bring your face closer.... Why not let me put my
lips to it, as I did when all things smiled to us in the garden of
flowers?... Love knows many days on which nothing smiles.... What
matter, if it be there to smile when we weep?... I am pushing back
your hair which hid your face and made it look so sad.... See, it is
just like that which I pushed back in our first kiss.... Come, come,
do not think about the lies of the mirrors.... They do not know what
they say; but love knows.... Already life is returning to those eyes
which see me again.... Have no fear, for I have none.... I know what
we must do and I shall have the secret that will cure your pain....
LANCÉOR.
Joyzelle!...
JOYZELLE.
Yes, yes, come nearer; I love you more dearly than at the happy
moment when all united us....
LANCÉOR.
Ah, I understand that; but the other, the other thing!...
JOYZELLE.
What thing?
LANCÉOR.
I understand that one can find one's love in ruins, that one can
gather up its remnants and loves them still.... But where are the
remnants of our love? Nothing is left of it; for, before fate struck
me as you see, I had crushed out of existence all that it could not
destroy.... I have lied and deceived; and, at the very moment when
the least lie begins again in a sphere where nothing is wiped out,
a fault which love might have pardoned.... Truth is dead in our
one heart.... I have lost the confidence in which all my thoughts
surrounded your thoughts, even as a transparent water surrounds a
still clearer water.... I myself no longer believe in it, I no longer
believe in myself; I have nothing pure left into which you can bend
to find my shadow; and my soul is even sadder than my body....
JOYZELLE.
Did you kiss that woman?...
LANCÉOR.
Yes.
JOYZELLE.
Did she call you?...
LANCÉOR.
No.
JOYZELLE.
And why did you say that I was mistaken?...
LANCÉOR.
What good would it be to tell you, Joyzelle? It is too late....
You would not believe me, for you would have to believe the
incredible.... I was walking in a trance, in a sort of invincible,
mocking dream.... My mind, my reason, my will were all farther from
themselves than is this shattered body from what it was.... I would
have liked to tell you, to shout to you again and again that I was
a lie that had escaped control and that the shameful speeches that
defiled my lips stifled, in spite of myself, the tearful confession
and the ardent words of desperate love that were leaping towards
you.... I made efforts fit to burst my throat, to break my heart; and
I heard my faithless voice betray me and my arms, my hands, my eyes,
my kisses were powerless to disown it; for, except my soul, which you
did not see, I felt myself a prey to a hostile force, irresistible,
alas, and incomprehensible!...
JOYZELLE.
But ah, I did see it!... And I knew at once that it was not you that
were lying, that it was impossible....
LANCÉOR.
How did you know?...
JOYZELLE.
Because I love you....
LANCÉOR.
But, what am I, Joyzelle, what do you love in me, in whom I have
profaned and others destroyed all that you once loved?...
JOYZELLE.
You.
LANCÉOR.
What remains of me?... Not these hands, which have lost their
strength; not these eyes, which no longer have their brightness; not
this heart, which has betrayed love....
JOYZELLE.
It is you and still you and none but you yourself!... What matter who
you are, so long as I find you!... Oh, I cannot tell how to explain
that!... When one loves as I love you, she is blind and deaf, because
she looks beyond and listens elsewhere.... When she loves as I love
you, it is not what he says, it is not what he does, it is not what
he is that she loves in the man she loves: it is he and only he, who
remains the same, through the passing years and troubles.... It is
he alone, it is you alone, in whom no change can come but that which
increases love.... He who is all in you, you who are all in him, you
whom I see, whom I hear, to whom I listen incessantly and whom I love
always....
LANCÉOR.
Joyzelle!...
JOYZELLE.
Yes, yes, embrace me, crush me in your arms!... We have to struggle,
we shall have to suffer; we are here in a world that seems full of
snares.... We are only two, but we are all love!...