What mist? What mirages?... How long have you been on this island? LANCÉOR. Since yesterday.... JOYZELLE. Strange, they did not tell me.... LANCÉOR. No one saw me.... I was wandering on the shore, I was in despair.... JOYZELLE. Oh! Why?... LANCÉOR. I was very far from here, I was very far from him, when a letter told me that my old father was dying.... I took ship at once. We were long at sea; then, in the first port at which the ship put in, I learnt that it was too late, that my father was no more.... I continued my voyage, at least to be on the scene of his last thoughts and carry out his last wishes.... JOYZELLE. Why are you here? LANCÉOR. Why? I do not know, nor do I know how.... The sea was very still and the sky was clear.... We saw only the water slumbering in the azure.... Suddenly, without warning, the waves were invaded by thick blue mists.... They rose like a veil, which clung to our hands, to the rigging, to our faces.... Then the wind blew, our anchor broke loose and the blind ship, driven by a current that made her timbers creak, arrived towards evening in the unknown harbour of this unexpected island.... Sad and disheartened, I landed on the beach; I fell asleep in a cave overlooking the sea; and, when I awoke, the fog had lifted and I saw the ship disappear like a radiant wing on the horizon of the waves. JOYZELLE. What had happened? LANCÉOR. I do not know.... I would have tried to follow her, but I could find no boat in the harbour.... I must wait, therefore, until another vessel passes.... JOYZELLE. That is curious.... It is like myself.... LANCÉOR. Like you?... JOYZELLE. Yes, I too came to the island through a thick fog.... But I was shipwrecked.... LANCÉOR. When was that? And how?... Where do you come from, Joyzelle?... JOYZELLE. I was coming from another island.... LANCÉOR. Where were you going? JOYZELLE. Where some one was awaiting me.... LANCÉOR. Who? JOYZELLE. One whom they had thought right to choose for me.... LANCÉOR. Were you betrothed?... JOYZELLE. Yes. LANCÉOR. Do you love him?... JOYZELLE. No. LANCÉOR. But then?... JOYZELLE. My mother wished it.... LANCÉOR. Do you intend to obey her? JOYZELLE. No. LANCÉOR. Ah, that is well!... I like that!... And my father, at the moment of his death, wished that I also should choose her whom he had chosen for me.... He had his reasons, very deep and serious reasons, it appears.... And, as he wished it and as he is no longer alive, I must obey him.... JOYZELLE. Why? LANCÉOR. We cannot evade the wishes of the dead. JOYZELLE. Why? LANCÉOR. They can no longer be altered.... We must have pity, we must respect them.... JOYZELLE. No.... LANCÉOR. You would not obey?... JOYZELLE. No. LANCÉOR. Joyzelle!... This is horrible!... JOYZELLE. No, the dead are horrible, if they want us to love those whom we do not love.... LANCÉOR. Joyzelle!... I am afraid of you.... JOYZELLE.