[_JOYZELLE lies sleeping on a grassy bank, before
a box hedge, cut into arches, in which lilies are
flowering. It is night. A fountain ripples gently.
The moon is shining. Enter ARIELLE._
ARIELLE.
She sleeps.... The breaths of the garden are hushed around her to
listen to her breath; and the nightingale alone, deputed by the night
which bathes her in silver, comes to soothe her slumbers.... How
beautiful and peaceful she is; and how pure she looks, a thousand
times purer than the water that trickles yonder, flowing from the
glaciers, in the snowy whiteness that sings under the pale leaves!...
Her sweet hair lies spread like a flood of motionless light; and
the moon cannot tell to whom belongs the gold that mingles with the
azure in which its beams float.... Her bright eyes are closed; and
yet the light that falls from the stars tremulously raises her loving
eyelids to seek beneath them the last memory of the fair day that is
past.... Her mouth is a moist, breathing flower; and the lilies have
poured dewdrops on her bare shoulder, to give her her share of the
pearls which night distributes in silence, in the name of the heavens
that open over the treasure of the worlds.... Ah, Joyzelle, Joyzelle!
I am but a phantom lost in the night, more lost than you, for all my
clear-sightedness, and nearer the tomb where happiness expires.... I
am not my own mistress; I obey my master, I can give nothing but an
invisible kiss, which cannot wake you and is not even mine.... But I
love you, I love you, as a less happy sister loves her whom love has
chosen first.... I love you, I encompass you with all the powers that
are not named in the prayers of men; and I would that my master had
met you earlier, before fate, which hurries forward that incomparable
hour, had fixed the tearful future that awaits him and awaits me
with him.... I spread my powerless, troubled affection over your
calm sleep.... Here is the only kiss that I can give you.... Ah, why
does not he of whom I am but the unconscious and docile shadow come
himself to lay it on your lips, which call to mine even as all that
is beautiful calls to mystery!...
[_She kisses JOYZELLE on the forehead._
JOYZELLE.
(_In her sleep._) Lancéor!...
ARIELLE.
One more.... The last, even as we drink of the well defended by the
angels who keep the secrets of time and space, the well at whose
brink we shall never rest again....
JOYZELLE.
(_Sleeping, talking as in a dream._) Is that you, Lancéor?... How
sweet your lips are at the breath of dawn!... I swoon beneath the
flowers that fall from paradise....
ARIELLE.
Faithful in sleep and constant in her dreams!... The demons of the
night will steal nothing from the love that fills the past and
future of a heart!... Ah, my master and father!... It is she whom
your only hope awaited, in vain, to avert the fate that threatens
your old age!... O master, if you be willing, there is yet time; and
happiness is here: you have but to gather it!... It sways uncertain
between your son and you; a gesture would be enough to fix it upon
ourselves.... Come hither, she is yours!... Come, come, come, I am
calling you.... I know that I am right and that man must not renounce
life and ruin himself to save those whom he loves....
MERLIN.
(_In the distance, in a voice of grave reproach._) Arielle!...
[_He enters, wrapped in a long cloak._
ARIELLE.
I am speaking for you and my voice is your voice.... I speak in the
name of your heart, which loves deeply and dares not confess it....
You had, at this prescribed moment, to meet that sleeping woman, in
order to avoid one who will destroy your old age....
MERLIN.
Begone, it is too late....
ARIELLE.
No, it is not too late; this is the one moment; and your destiny
depends on the movement which you make....
MERLIN.
Begone, do not tempt me, or I will plunge you back into your impotent
shade.... I drew you from it to open my eyes, not to mislead me....
ARIELLE.
To listen to the instinct by which alone men are saved is not to be
misled.... Think of the terrible days which Viviane is preparing:
Viviane, whom you must love if you do not love this one....
_Merlin._
Viviane?... Is it in this life or in some other world that that name
resounds within my secret heart like a name of madness, sorrow and
shame?...
_Arielle._
No, it is in this life, the only one that you possess.... It is the
name of the fairy who, in Brocéliande, where your fate leads you,
awaits your appearance to shatter your old age.... O master, I see
her!... Have a care, she approaches and will win your heart!... So
soon as this love, so pure, so healthful, has lost its claims, hers
crawls out of the shadow.... Master, I entreat you!... My eyes are
counting her wiles: she entwines you with her arms which travesty
love; she takes away your power, your reason, your wisdom; she
snatches from you at last the secret of your strength; and, like an
old, drunken man, you fall to the ground.... Then she strips you,
mocks at you, rises to her feet and closes on us the door of the
mortal cavern which will never open again....
MERLIN.
It is inevitable, then?...
ARIELLE.
You know, as I do, that nothing can deceive me where you are
concerned.... Master, I beseech you, both for yourself and for me,
who love the light and who must lose it with you!... This is the
irrevocable hour!... Choose, choose life!... It still offers itself
and therefore it belongs to us and you have a right to it!...
MERLIN.
Begone, it is useless.... Besides, this one would never have loved
me....
ARIELLE.
It is enough that you love her and that he whom she loves no longer
stands between you.... That is what I read in the two futures....
MERLIN.
(_Wiping the sweat of anguish from his brow._) Begone, for I know....
And so it was written that, by loving this child, I could have saved
myself.... But she is not for me; and my hour is past.... This is
the hour of those who come and who have met as time ordained, as
life ordained.... Begone, begone, I say!... (_ARIELLE, veiling her
features, exit silently._) I surrender my share; and it is for you,
my son, that I complete the proof.... (_He takes off his cloak and
appears taller and younger, dressed in clothes similar to LANCÉOR'S
and presenting a strange resemblance to him. Approaching JOYZELLE._)
Ah, my innocent Joyzelle!... You will suffer too, you must suffer
still more, since destiny lies hidden in your tears; but what matter
the sorrows that lead to love?... I would gladly exchange all the
joys that I have known in my poor life for the most cruel of those
happy sorrows.... (_He leans over JOYZELLE._) Arielle spoke truly.
I have but to make a movement to put back the hours and the days and
thus escape the horrible end which fate reserves for me.... Yes, but
that movement destroys him whom I love more than myself, him whom the
years have chosen for the love for which I had hoped.... Ah, when we
thus hold in our hands our own happiness and that of another man;
when we must crush one so that the other may survive: it is then
that we feel how deep are the roots that bind us to the earth on
which we suffer; it is then that life utters a superhuman cry to make
itself heard and to defend its rights!... But it is then also that we
must give ear to the other voice that speaks, to the voice that has
nothing definite or sure to tell us, that has nothing to promise and
that is only a murmur more sacred than life's inarticulate cries....
Lancéor and Joyzelle, love each other, love me, for I have loved
you.... I am feeble and frail and made for happiness like other men;
nor do I surrender my share without a struggle.... Love each other,
my children; I am listening to the little voice which has nothing to
tell me, but which alone is right.
[_He kneels before JOYZELLE and kisses her on the
forehead._
JOYZELLE.
(_Waking with a start._) Lancéor!...
MERLIN.
Yes, it is I: the darkness has led me to you; and I come to wake you
with a new kiss, so that you may....
JOYZELLE.
(_Springing up and looking at him in terror._) Who are you?...
MERLIN.
(_Putting out his arms to embrace her._) You know who I am, Joyzelle,
and love must tell you....
JOYZELLE.
(_Drawing back violently._) Ah, do not touch me, or I shall summon
death to come to put an end to this horrible dream!... I know not
what phantoms have haunted this night, but this is the vilest, the
basest, the most cowardly that the darkness has sent!... I do not
believe in it yet!... I am bruising my eyes in trying to awake
myself!... Ah, do not come near me!... Back!... Begone!... You fill
me with horror!...
MERLIN.
Look at me, Joyzelle!... I do not understand you; and doubtless sleep
still troubles....
JOYZELLE.
Where is he?...
MERLIN.
Wake, Joyzelle....
JOYZELLE.
Where is he and what have you done with him?...
MERLIN.
He is wherever I am; and, if your eyes mislead you....
JOYZELLE.
Do you not know that I carry him here, in these eyes which see you
and compare what he is with what you are?... Have you not seen what
he is in my heart, that you should copy him thus?... You, beside him;
you, in his clothes and under his aspect: ah, it is as though death
pretended to be life!... But there might be twenty thousand of you
resembling him and he alone be changed from what he was yesterday;
and I would sweep away the twenty thousand phantoms, to go to the
only man who is not a dream among the other dreams!... Oh, do not try
to hide in the shadow.... You retreat too late; I have discovered you
and I know who you are... I know your spells; and how I should laugh
at them, did I not fear that, by your witchcraft, when usurping that
dear and unrecognizable shape, you have caused him to suffer!... What
have you done to him?... Where is he?... I will know.... You shall
not go without answering.... (_Seizing MERLIN'S hand._) I am alone, I
am weak.... But I insist, I insist.... I will know, I will know!...
MERLIN.
I love you too much, Joyzelle, to do him any harm, so long as you
love him.... He has therefore nothing to fear.... Do you not fear me
either. I am not here to take advantage of the darkness and surprise
your heart. I had another object.... Listen to me, Joyzelle; it is
no longer the rival or the unhappy lover that speaks to you; it
is a prudent and anxious father.... Before he came who conquered
you, as never man in this world conquered woman, I had, I confess,
caught a glimpse of a happiness which it is idle to pursue in the
decline of years.... To-day I retire, sadly, but in good faith....
I know how much you love the poor unconscious being whom malevolent
chance has placed upon your road.... And do not mistake me: I am
speaking of him now without hatred or envy, but not without dismay,
when I think of the heart-rending days which he is preparing for
you.... That is why I insist on enlightening you as regards him, at
the risk of displeasing you.... I have no other care than to make
you turn away from an unhappy love in which nothing but tears and
disillusion awaits you.... I have no hope for myself.... I do not ask
you to love me in his stead.... You have shown me fully that that is
impossible.... I desire only that you will cease to love him: that is
all that I implore of the kindness of fate; and fate to-night hears
my prayer....
JOYZELLE.
How?...
MERLIN.
The proof is grave and sad; I would have liked to spare you.... But
you know better than I that there are salutary sufferings, before
which it is shameful to fly.... A sign will be enough to overturn a
world.... A little movement of that neck which as yet bends without
anxiety, a single glance of those eyes, too confident and too full
of innocence, will destroy before my sight the most beautiful thing
that love has created in a woman's heart.... And yet, it must be....
It is right, it is well that this thing should to-day be lost in
tears which it may yet be possible to wipe away; for later it would
have had to sink in sorrows which nothing could have consoled....
JOYZELLE.
What do you mean?...
MERLIN.
That, at this very moment, when all that is spotless and true, limpid
and ardent in your heart, when all the transparent virtues of your
soul, all the faithfulness, all the loyalty and all the innocence of
your virgin blood mount up towards him whom you had selected to make
of him the purest, the happiest of men, he is there, behind us, at
two steps from this bank, sheltered by those leaves which he thinks
impenetrable, in the arms of the woman with whom, the other day, as
you yourself saw, he profaned the marvellous love which you have
given him!...
JOYZELLE.
No.
MERLIN.
Why do you say no, without looking?...
JOYZELLE.
Because he is myself....
MERLIN.
I do not ask you to believe my words: I simply ask you to turn your
head....
JOYZELLE.
No.
MERLIN.
Do you hear the murmur of their voices mingling and the song of
kisses answering kisses?...
JOYZELLE.
No.
MERLIN.
Do not raise your voice to interrupt a crime which you do not wish
to see.... They will not hear you; they listen only to the sound of
their lips!... But turn, Joyzelle, I beseech you!... Your life is
at stake and all the happiness to which you have a right!... Do not
reject the proffered truth that comes to save you if you have the
courage at last to accept it! It will not return except to make you
weep, when it is too late!... But look! Look!... You need not even
turn your head!... Your star is kind to you and does not tire!...
Do not close your eyes, it is coming to unseal them!... See!... The
shadow of their arms, lengthened by the moonlight, is creeping along
that arch and covering your knees!... Open your eyes! Look!... It is
coming to defy you, it is rising to your lips!...
JOYZELLE.
No.
[_A pause._
MERLIN.
I understand you, Joyzelle.... You must not deny what remains of your
love while I am here.... I leave you to yourself, face to face with
your duty, face to face with your destiny.... Such sacrifices ask
for no witnesses: they demand silence.... The truth is there; it is
cowardly to fly from it.... You will know how to face it when you are
alone.... There is yet time.... I admire you, Joyzelle.... Your life
and your happiness invoke your courage and depend upon a glance....
[_Exit MERLIN. JOYZELLE, for a long moment, remains
seated on the bank, motionless, with wide-open eyes,
staring fixedly before her. Then she rises, draws
herself up and goes out slowly, without turning her
head._