ELV. Give it to me. (_To Don Garcia_). We shall see who is to blame; join the two parts together, and then read it aloud. I wish to hear it. GARC. "_To Don Garcia_." Ha! ELV. Go on! Are you thunderstruck at the first word? GARC. (_Reads_). "_Though your rival, Prince, disturbs your mind, you ought still to fear yourself more than him. It is in your power to destroy now the greatest obstacle your passion has to encounter. I feel very grateful to Don Garcia for rescuing me from the hands of my bold ravishers; his love, his homage delights me much; but his jealousy is odious to me. Remove, therefore, from your love that foul blemish; deserve the regards that are bestowed upon it; and when one endeavours to make you happy, do not persist in remaining miserable_." ELV. Well, what do you say to this? GARC. Ah! Madam, I say that on reading this I am quite confounded; that I see the extreme injustice of my complaints, and that no punishment can be severe enough for me. ELV. Enough! Know that if I desired that you should read the letter, it was only to contradict everything I stated in it; to unsay a hundred times all that you read there in your favour. Farewell, Prince. GARC. Alas, Madam! whither do you fly? ELV. To a spot where you shall not be, over-jealous man. GARC. Ah, Madam, excuse a lover who is wretched because, by a wonderful turn of fate, he has become guilty towards you, and who, though you are now very wroth with him, would have deserved greater blame if he had remained innocent. For, in short, can a heart be truly enamoured which does not dread as well as hope? And could you believe I loved you if this ominous letter had not alarmed me; if I had not trembled at the thunderbolt which I imagined had destroyed all my happiness? I leave it to yourself to judge if such an accident would not have caused any other lover to commit the same error; if I could disbelieve, alas, a proof which seemed to me so clear! ELV. Yes, you might have done so; my feelings so clearly expressed ought to have prevented your suspicions. You had nothing to fear; if some others had had such a pledge they would have laughed to scorn the testimony of the whole world. GARC. The less we deserve a happiness which has been promised us, the greater is the difficulty we feel in believing in it. A destiny too full of glory seems unstable, and renders us suspicious. As for me, who think myself so little deserving of your favours, I doubted the success of my rashness. [Footnote: Molière has with a few alterations placed this phrase beginning with "the less," and ending with "my rashness," in the mouth of _Tartuffe_ in the play of the same name, Act iv., Sc. 5, (see Vol. II).] I thought that, finding yourself in a place under my command, you forced yourself to be somewhat kind to me; that, disguising to me your severity...