What good would it be to tell you, Joyzelle? It is too late.... You would not believe me, for you would have to believe the incredible.... I was walking in a trance, in a sort of invincible, mocking dream.... My mind, my reason, my will were all farther from themselves than is this shattered body from what it was.... I would have liked to tell you, to shout to you again and again that I was a lie that had escaped control and that the shameful speeches that defiled my lips stifled, in spite of myself, the tearful confession and the ardent words of desperate love that were leaping towards you.... I made efforts fit to burst my throat, to break my heart; and I heard my faithless voice betray me and my arms, my hands, my eyes, my kisses were powerless to disown it; for, except my soul, which you did not see, I felt myself a prey to a hostile force, irresistible, alas, and incomprehensible!... JOYZELLE. But ah, I did see it!... And I knew at once that it was not you that were lying, that it was impossible.... LANCÉOR. How did you know?... JOYZELLE. Because I love you.... LANCÉOR. But, what am I, Joyzelle, what do you love in me, in whom I have profaned and others destroyed all that you once loved?... JOYZELLE. You. LANCÉOR. What remains of me?... Not these hands, which have lost their strength; not these eyes, which no longer have their brightness; not this heart, which has betrayed love.... JOYZELLE. It is you and still you and none but you yourself!... What matter who you are, so long as I find you!... Oh, I cannot tell how to explain that!... When one loves as I love you, she is blind and deaf, because she looks beyond and listens elsewhere.... When she loves as I love you, it is not what he says, it is not what he does, it is not what he is that she loves in the man she loves: it is he and only he, who remains the same, through the passing years and troubles.... It is he alone, it is you alone, in whom no change can come but that which increases love.... He who is all in you, you who are all in him, you whom I see, whom I hear, to whom I listen incessantly and whom I love always.... LANCÉOR. Joyzelle!... JOYZELLE. Yes, yes, embrace me, crush me in your arms!... We have to struggle, we shall have to suffer; we are here in a world that seems full of snares.... We are only two, but we are all love!... SCENE II.--_A grove._ [_JOYZELLE lies sleeping on a grassy bank, before a box hedge, cut into arches, in which lilies are flowering. It is night. A fountain ripples gently. The moon is shining. Enter ARIELLE._ ARIELLE.