The Dramatic Works of G. E. Lessing Part 9

Fly, then! But take everything with you that could remind me of you.

Poor, despised, without honour, and without friends, I will then venture again to awaken your pity. I will show you in the unfortunate Marwood only a miserable woman, who has sacrificed to you her person, her honour, her virtue, and her conscience. I will remind you of the first day, when you saw and loved me; of the first, stammering, bashful confession of your love, which you made me at my feet; of the first a.s.surance of my return of your love, which you forced from me; of the tender looks, of the pa.s.sionate embraces, which followed, of the eloquent silence, when each with busy mind divined the other's most secret feelings, and read the most hidden thoughts of the soul in the languis.h.i.+ng eye; of the trembling expectation of approaching gratification; of the intoxication of its joys; of the sweet relaxation after the fulness of enjoyment, in which the exhausted spirits regained strength for fresh delights. I shall remind you of all this, and then embrace your knees, and entreat without ceasing for the only gift, which you cannot deny me, and which I can accept without blus.h.i.+ng--for death from your hand.

MELLEFONT.

Cruel one! I would still give even my life for you. Ask it, ask it, only do not any longer claim my love. I must leave you, Marwood, or make myself an object of loathing to the whole world. I am culpable already in that I only stand here and listen to you. Farewell, farewell!

MARWOOD (_holding him back_).

You must leave me? And what, then, do you wish, shall become of me? As I am now, I am your creature; do, then, what becomes a creator; he may not withdraw his hand from the work until he wishes to destroy it utterly. Alas, Hannah, I see now, my entreaties alone are too feeble.

Go, bring my intercessor, who will now, perhaps, return to me more than she ever received from me. (_Exit_ Hannah).

MELLEFONT.

What intercessor, Marwood?

MARWOOD.

Ah, an intercessor of whom you would only too willingly have deprived me. Nature will take a shorter road to your heart with her grievances.

MELLEFONT.

You alarm me. Surely you have not----

Scene IV.

Arabella, Hannah, Mellefont, Marwood.

MELLEFONT.

What do I see? It is she! Marwood, how could you dare to----

MARWOOD.

Am I not her mother? Come, my Bella, see, here is your protector again, your friend, your .... Ah! his heart may tell him what more he can be to you than a protector and a friend.

MELLEFONT (_turning away his face_).

G.o.d, what shall I have to suffer here?

ARABELLA (_advancing timidly towards him_).

Ah, Sir! Is it you? Are you our Mellefont? No, Madam, surely, surely it is not he! Would he not look at me, if it were? Would he not hold me in his arms? He used to do so. What an unhappy child I am! How have I grieved him, this dear, dear man, who let me call him my father?

MARWOOD.

You are silent, Mellefont? You grudge the innocent child a single look?

MELLEFONT.

Ah!

ARABELLA.

Why, he sighs, Madam! What is the matter with him? Cannot we help him?

Cannot I? Nor you? Then let us sigh with him! Ah, now he looks at me!

No, he looks away again! He looks up to Heaven! What does he want? What does he ask from Heaven? Would that Heaven would grant him everything, even if it refused me everything for it!

MARWOOD.

Go, my child, go, fall at his feet! He wants to leave us, to leave us for ever.

ARABELLA (_falling on her knees before him_).

Here I am already. You will leave us? You will leave us for ever? Have not we already been without you for a little "for ever." Shall we have to lose you again? You have said so often that you loved us. Does one leave the people whom one loves? I cannot love you then, I suppose, for I should wish never to leave you. Never, and I never will leave you either.

MARWOOD.

I will help you in your entreaties, my child! And you must help me too!

Now, Mellefont, you see me too at your feet....

MELLEFONT (_stopping her, as she throws herself at his feet_).

Marwood, dangerous Marwood! And you, too, my dearest Bella (_raising her up_), you too are the enemy of your Mellefont?

ARABELLA.

I your enemy?

MARWOOD.

What is your resolve?

MELLEFONT.

What it ought not to be, Marwood; what it ought not to be.

MARWOOD (_embracing him_).

Ah, I know that the honesty of your heart has always overcome the obstinacy of your desires.

MELLEFONT.

Do not importune me any longer! I am already what you wish to make me; a perjurer, a seducer, a robber, a murderer!

MARWOOD.

You will be so in imagination for a few days, and after that you will see that I have prevented you from becoming so in reality. You will return with us, won't you?