Part 19 (1/2)

Sir William Sampson, Waitwell.

(_The drawing-room_.)

SIR WILLIAM.

What balm you have poured on my wounded heart with your words, Waitwell! I live again, and the prospect of her return seems to carry me as far back to my youth as her flight had brought me nearer to my grave. She loves me still? What more do I wis.h.!.+ Go back to her soon, Waitwell? I am impatient for the moment when I shall fold her again in these arms, which I had stretched out so longingly to death! How welcome would it have been to me in the moments of my grief! And how terrible will it be to me in my new happiness! An old man, no doubt, is to be blamed for drawing the bonds so tight again which still unite him to the world. The final separation becomes the more painful. But G.o.d who shows Himself so merciful to me now, will also help me to go through this. Would He, I ask, grant me a mercy in order to let it become ray ruin in the end? Would He give me back a daughter, that I should have to murmur when He calls me from life? No, no! He gives her back to me that in my last hour I may be anxious about myself alone.

Thanks to Thee, Eternal Father! How feeble is the grat.i.tude of mortal lips? But soon, soon I shall be able to thank Him more worthily in an eternity devoted to Him alone!

WAITWELL.

How it delights me, Sir, to know you happy again before my death!

Believe me, I have suffered almost as much in your grief as you yourself. Almost as much, for the grief of a father in such a case must be inexpressible.

SIR WILLIAM.

Do not regard yourself as my servant any longer, my good Waitwell. You have long deserved to enjoy a more seemly old age. I will give it you, and you shall not be worse off than I am while I am still in this world.

I will abolish all difference between us; in yonder world, you well know, it will be done. For this once be the old servant still, on whom I never relied in vain. Go, and be sure to bring me her answer, as soon as it is ready.

WAITWELL.

I go, Sir! But such an errand is not a service. It is a reward which you grant me for my services. Yes, truly it is so! (_Exeunt on different sides of the stage_.)

ACT IV.

Scene I.--Mellefont's _room_.

Mellefont, Sara.

MELLEFONT.

Yes, dearest Sara, yes! That I will do! That I must do.

SARA.

How happy you make me!

MELLEFONT.

It is I who must take the whole crime upon myself. I alone am guilty; I alone must ask for forgiveness.

SARA.

No, Mellefont, do not take from me the greater share which I have in our error! It is dear to me, however wrong it is, for it must have convinced you that I love my Mellefont above everything in this world.

But is it, then, really true, that I may henceforth combine this love with the love of my father? Or am I in a pleasant dream? How I fear it will pa.s.s and I shall awaken in my old misery! But no! I am not merely dreaming, I am really happier than I ever dared hope to become; happier than this short life may perhaps allow. But perhaps this beam of happiness appears in the distance, and delusively seems to approach only in order to melt away again into thick darkness, and to leave me suddenly in a night whose whole terror has only become perceptible to me through this short illumination. What forebodings torment me! Are they really forebodings, Mellefont, or are they common feelings, which are inseparable from the expectation of an undeserved happiness, and the fear of losing it? How fast my heart beats, and how wildly it beats. How loud now, how quick! And now how weak, how anxious, how quivering! Now it hurries again, as if these were its last throbbings, which it would fain beat out rapidly. Poor heart!

MELLEFONT.