It is not an adder.... It is a horrible animal.... It is lifting itself against you!... Let me crush it underfoot.... It is foaming.... It is dead.... Lancéor, you are turning pale!... Lean on my neck.... Fear nothing, I am strong.... Show me your wound.... Lancéor, I am here.... Lancéor, answer me!... MERLIN. (_Approaching them and examining the bite._) The wound is mortal.... The poison is very slow and its action is strange.... Do not despair.... I alone know the remedy.... JOYZELLE. Lancéor! Lancéor! Answer me! Answer me!... MERLIN. He will not answer, he is sound asleep.... Withdraw, Joyzelle, unless you wish this mere sleep to end in the grave.... Withdraw, Joyzelle: you will not be betraying him; you will be warding off death.... JOYZELLE. First make the sign that shall restore him to life! MERLIN. (_Looking at her gravely._) I will make the sign, Joyzelle. (_JOYZELLE exit slowly, turns back and withdraws at last, before a grave and imperious gesture from MERLIN. MERLIN, left alone with LANCÉOR, kneels down beside him to dress his wound._) There, have no fear, my son, there, it is for your happiness; and may all my heart open in the first kiss that I am able to give you. [_He embraces him long and fervently. Enter ARIELLE._ ARIELLE. Master, we must hasten and lay the new trap. MERLIN. Will he fall into it? ARIELLE. Man always falls into a trap, when his instinct leads him; but let us veil his reason, let us change his character; we shall behold a sight that will make us smile.... MERLIN. I shall not smile, for the sight is a sad one and I do not like to see a noble and beautiful love, a love that believes itself predestined and unparalleled, thus reduced to nothing, at the first proof, in the arms of a phantom.... ARIELLE. Lancéor is not free, for he is no longer himself and I have abandoned him to his instinct during the past hour.... MERLIN. He ought to have conquered it.... ARIELLE. You speak like that because I am submissive: but remember the time when I was less docile. MERLIN. You think yourself very docile because I have conquered you; but you retain some shadow even in the light in which I have been able to train you and I find in you a certain cruelty that takes too great a pleasure in men's weaknesses.... ARIELLE. Men's weaknesses are often necessary to the purposes of life.... MERLIN. What will happen if he yields?... ARIELLE. He will yield: it is written. The question is if Joyzelle's love will surmount the proof. MERLIN. And do you not know? ARIELLE.