Part 4 (1/2)

Sara, Mellefont.

MELLEFONT.

You are faint, dearest Sara! You must sit down!

SARA (_sits down_).

I trouble you very early! Will you forgive me that with the morning I again begin my complaints?

MELLEFONT.

Dearest Sara, you mean to say that you cannot forgive me, because another morning has dawned, and I have not yet put an end to your complaints?

SARA.

What is there that I would not forgive you? You know what I have already forgiven you. But the ninth week, Mellefont! the ninth week begins to-day, and this miserable house still sees me in just the same position as on the first day.

MELLEFONT.

You doubt my love?

SARA.

I doubt your love? No, I feel my misery too much, too much to wish to deprive myself of this last and only solace.

MELLEFONT.

How, then, can you be uneasy about the delay of a ceremony?

SARA.

Ah, Mellefont! Why is it that we think so differently about this ceremony! Yield a little to the woman's way of thinking! I imagine in it a more direct consent from Heaven. In vain did I try again, only yesterday, in the long tedious evening, to adopt your ideas, and to banish from my breast the doubt which just now--not for the first time, you have deemed the result of my distrust. I struggled with myself; I was clever enough to deafen my understanding; but my heart and my feeling quickly overthrew this toilsome structure of reason.

Reproachful voices roused me from my sleep, and my imagination united with them to torment me. What pictures, what dreadful pictures hovered about me! I would willingly believe them to be dreams----

MELLEFONT.

What? Could my sensible Sara believe them to be anything else? Dreams, my dearest, dreams!--How unhappy is man!--Did not his Creator find tortures enough for him in the realm of reality? Had he also to create in him the still more s.p.a.cious realm of imagination in order to increase them?

SARA.

Do not accuse Heaven! It has left the imagination in our power. She is guided by our acts; and when these are in accordance with our duties and with virtue the imagination serves only to increase our peace and happiness. A single act, Mellefont, a single blessing bestowed upon us by a messenger of peace, in the name of the Eternal One, can restore my shattered imagination again. Do you still hesitate to do a few days sooner for love of me, what in any case you mean to do at some future time? Have pity on me, and consider that, although by this you may be freeing me only from torments of the imagination, yet these imagined torments are torments, and are real torments for her who feels them.

Ah! could I but tell you the terrors of the last night half as vividly as I have felt them. Wearied with crying and grieving--my only occupations--I sank down on my bed with half-closed eyes. Sly nature wished to recover itself a moment, to collect new tears. But hardly asleep yet, I suddenly saw myself on the steepest peak of a terrible rock. You went on before, and I followed with tottering, anxious steps, strengthened now and then by a glance which you threw back upon me.

Suddenly I heard behind me a gentle call, which bade me stop. It was my father's voice--I unhappy one, can I forget nothing which is his? Alas if his memory renders him equally cruel service; if he too cannot forget me!--But he has forgotten me. Comfort! cruel comfort for his Sara!--But, listen, Mellefont! In turning round to this well-known voice, my foot slipped; I reeled, and was on the point of falling down the precipice, when just in time, I felt myself held back by one who resembled myself. I was just returning her my pa.s.sionate thanks, when she drew a dagger from her bosom. ”I saved you,” she cried, ”to ruin you!” She lifted her armed hand--and--! I awoke with the blow. Awake, I still felt all the pain which a mortal stab must give, without the pleasure which it brings--the hope for the end of grief in the end of life.

MELLEFONT.

Ah! dearest Sara, I promise you the end of your grief, without the end of your life, which would certainly be the end of mine also. Forget the terrible tissue of a meaningless dream!

SARA.