Not yet. I must remain in her eyes, until the close of the day, the
pitiless tyrant whom she curses in her heart. My poor, dear child!...
How I have tortured your adorable love!... But I have already told
you the object of these proofs.... In making you suffer, I have but
been the instrument of fate and the unworthy slave of another will,
whose source I do not know, which seems to demand that the slightest
happiness should be surrounded by tears.... I have but hastened, in
order to bring happiness more quickly, the coming of those tears
which hung in suspense between your two destinies.... You shall know
some day by what power, a power which has no magical or supernatural
quality, but which still lies hidden at the bottom of men's lives,
I at times command certain phenomena, certain appearances that
bewildered you. You shall also learn that I have acquired the gift,
often a useless one, of reading the future a little more clearly and
a little further than the rest of men.... And so I saw you, groping
for each other, in time and space, for an unparalleled love, the
most perfect perhaps that the two or three centuries over which
my eyes have turned concealed within their shade.... You might
have met each other after many wanderings; but it was necessary to
hasten the expected meeting, because of you, my son, whom death
claimed in the absence of love.... And, on the other side, nothing
marked out Joyzelle for the hoped-for love, save a few scattered
and uncertain points and the proofs themselves which she was to
surmount. I therefore hurried on the prescribed proofs: they have
all been painful, but necessary; the last will be decisive and more
serious....
LANCÉOR.
Serious?... What do you mean?... It will not be dangerous for
Joyzelle, or for others?...
MERLIN.
It will not be dangerous for Joyzelle, but it imperils, for the
last time, the predestined love to which your life is linked....
That is why, in despite of all, in despite of my confidence, of my
anticipations, of my certainty even, I am afraid, I tremble a little
at the approach of the decisive hour....
LANCÉOR.
If Joyzelle is to decide, love has nothing to fear.... Come, do not
hesitate, Joyzelle will always be the source of joy.... But I do
not understand how, knowing the future, you are not able to see her
triumph beforehand?...
MERLIN.
I already told you, before we came in here, that Joyzelle can change
the future which she faces.... She possesses a force which I have
seen in none save her; that is why I do not know whether the great
victory which your love expects will not be mingled with some little
shadow and tears....
LANCÉOR.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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