The Dramatic Works of G. E. Lessing Part 19

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.

The tumult of your blood, which a sudden surprise cannot fail to cause, will abate, Sara, and your heart will continue its work more calmly.

None of its throbs point to aught that is in the future, and we are to blame--forgive me, dearest Sara!--if we make the mechanic pressure of our blood into a prophet of evil. But I will not leave anything undone which you yourself think good to appease this little storm within your breast. I will write at once, and I hope that Sir William will be satisfied with the a.s.surances of my repentance, with the expressions of my stricken heart, and my vows of affectionate obedience.

SARA.

Sir William? Ah, Mellefont, you must begin now to accustom yourself to a far more tender name. My father, your father, Mellefont----

MELLEFONT.

Very well, Sara, our kind, our dear father! I was very young when I last used this sweet name; very young, when I had to unlearn the equally sweet name of mother.

SARA.

You had to unlearn it, and I--I was never so happy, as to be able to p.r.o.nounce it at all. My life was her death! O G.o.d, I was a guiltless matricide! And how much was wanting--how little, how almost nothing was wanting to my becoming a parricide too! Not a guiltless, but a voluntary parricide. And who knows, whether I am not so already? The years, the days, the moments by which he is nearer to his end than he would have been without the grief I have caused him--of those I have robbed him. However old and weary he may be when Fate shall permit him to depart, my conscience will yet be unable to escape the reproach that but for me he might have lived yet longer. A sad reproach with which I doubtless should not need to charge myself, if a loving mother had guided me in my youth. Through her teaching and her example my heart would--you look tenderly on me, Mellefont? You are right; a mother would perhaps have been a tyrant for very love, and I should not now belong to Mellefont. Why do I wish then for that, which a wiser Fate denied me out of kindness? Its dispensations are always best. Let us only make proper use of that which it gives us; a father who never yet let me sigh for a mother; a father who will also teach you to forget the parents you lost so soon. What a flattering thought. I fall in love with it, and forget almost, that in my innermost heart there is still something which refuses to put faith in it. What is this rebellious something?

MELLEFONT.

This something, dearest Sara, as you have already said yourself, is the natural, timid incapability to realize a great happiness. Ah, your heart hesitated less to believe itself unhappy than now, to its own torment, it hesitates to believe in its own happiness! But as to one who has become dizzy with quick movement, the external objects still appear to move round when again he is sitting still, so the heart which has been violently agitated cannot suddenly become calm again; there remains often for a long time, a quivering palpitation which we must suffer to exhaust itself.

SARA.

I believe it, Mellefont, I believe it, because you say it, because I wish it. But do not let us detain each other any longer! I will go and finish my letter. And you will let me read yours, will you not, after I have shown you mine?

MELLEFONT.

Each word shall be submitted to your judgment; except what I must say in your defence, for I know you do not think yourself so innocent as you are. (_Accompanies Sara to the back of the stage_.)

Scene II.

MELLEFONT (_after walking up and down several times in thought_).

What a riddle I am to myself! What shall I think myself? A fool? Or a knave? Heart, what a villain thou art! I love the angel, however much of a devil I may be. I love her! Yes, certainly! certainly I love her.

I feel I would sacrifice a thousand lives for her, for her who sacrificed her virtue for me; I would do so,--this very moment without hesitation would I do so. And yet, yet--I am afraid to say it to myself--and yet--how shall I explain it? And yet I fear the moment which will make her mine for ever before the world. It cannot be avoided now, for her father is reconciled. Nor shall I be able to put it off for long. The delay has already drawn down painful reproaches enough upon me. But painful as they were, they were still more supportable to me than the melancholy thought of being fettered for life. But am I not so already? Certainly,--and with pleasure! Certainly I am already her prisoner. What is it I want, then? At present I am a prisoner, who is allowed to go about on parole; that is flattering! Why cannot the matter rest there? Why must I be put in chains and thus lack even the pitiable shadow of freedom? In chains? Quite so! Sara Sampson, my beloved! What bliss lies in these words! Sara Sampson, my wife! The half of the bliss is gone! and the other half--will go! Monster that I am! And with such thoughts shall I write to her father? Yet these are not my real thoughts, they are fancies! Cursed fancies, which have become natural to me through my dissolute life! I will free myself from them, or live no more.

Scene III.

Norton, Mellefont.

MELLEFONT.

You disturb me, Norton!

NORTON.

I beg your pardon, Sir (_withdrawing again_).