(_Starting up, as though to go to him, while still holding LANCÉOR
in a close embrace._) Ah, it is you!... So it is you!... At last
here is help and life coming!... Look at him! See!... It is time,
he is falling back!... I fling myself at your feet!... Yes, yes,
you can do all; and I have seen clear in all things!... Ah, at such
moments as this, one would see clear in the depths of a darkness
which worlds have never traversed!... Oh, I entreat you, tell me what
to do!... I am no longer Joyzelle, I am no longer fierce and I have
no more pride.... I am broken and dead: I drag myself at your feet;
and it is no more a question of this or that, of love or kisses, or
of trifling things!... Life and death stand face to face, they are
fighting under our eyes and must be separated.... You do not move a
step!... Ah, I know how great your hatred is and how you detest that
defenceless man!... Yes, you are right, he is anything you please, he
is a coward, he is a rascal, he is your enemy, he is a twenty-fold
traitor, since you will have it so!... Yes, I admit it, I was wrong,
I confess it, and I no longer love him, since you wish it, and I am
ready for anything, provided he be saved!... But that must be done
and that counts and all the rest is madness!... But come, come,
come, I tell you death is triumphing and will carry him off!... See,
his hands are turning blue and his eyes are growing dull and it is
horrible!...
MERLIN.
Joyzelle, fear nothing; his life is in my hands and I will save him,
if you wish me to save him....
JOYZELLE.
If I wish you to save him!... But do you not see that, if you were
to hesitate, do you not know that, if for his sake, I had to.... No,
no, I meant to say ... my distress bewilders me.... He has ceased to
breathe, I no longer hear his heart.... You seem to me so slow!...
Do you think that there is no danger, no need for haste?... I will
speak no more; I am making you lose minutes which perhaps were
passing to save him.... If you will not help him yourself--and I can
understand that, for you do not love him--tell me only what I must do
to assist him; and I shall know how to do it.... But I can see, I am
sure that he cannot wait and that we must make haste....
MERLIN.
I have told you, Joyzelle, his life is in my hands and cannot escape
without my consent. I warned you of it. The poison is doing its work
and I can see it. I alone can cure him, snatch him from death, call
back his vigour, his beauty, which are fading away, and restore him
to you as he was before....
JOYZELLE.
Ah, I entreat you, do not dally thus!... What is his beauty to me, if
his life escapes us?... Give him back to me as he is, whatever he may
be, what care I, if only I have him back, if only he breathes!...
MERLIN.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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