You had to unlearn it, and I--I was never so happy, as to be able to pronounce it at all. My life was her death! O God, I was a guiltless matricide! And how much was wanting--how little, how almost nothing was wanting to my becoming a parricide too! Not a guiltless, but a voluntary parricide. And who knows, whether I am not so already? The years, the days, the moments by which he is nearer to his end than he would have been without the grief I have caused him--of those I have robbed him. However old and weary he may be when Fate shall permit him to depart, my conscience will yet be unable to escape the reproach that but for me he might have lived yet longer. A sad reproach with which I doubtless should not need to charge myself, if a loving mother had guided me in my youth. Through her teaching and her example my heart would--you look tenderly on me, Mellefont? You are right; a mother would perhaps have been a tyrant for very love, and I should not now belong to Mellefont. Why do I wish then for that, which a wiser Fate denied me out of kindness? Its dispensations are always best. Let us only make proper use of that which it gives us; a father who never yet let me sigh for a mother; a father who will also teach you to forget the parents you lost so soon. What a flattering thought. I fall in love with it, and forget almost, that in my innermost heart there is still something which refuses to put faith in it. What is this rebellious something? MELLEFONT. This something, dearest Sara, as you have already said yourself, is the natural, timid incapability to realize a great happiness. Ah, your heart hesitated less to believe itself unhappy than now, to its own torment, it hesitates to believe in its own happiness! But as to one who has become dizzy with quick movement, the external objects still appear to move round when again he is sitting still, so the heart which has been violently agitated cannot suddenly become calm again; there remains often for a long time, a quivering palpitation which we must suffer to exhaust itself. SARA. I believe it, Mellefont, I believe it, because you say it, because I wish it. But do not let us detain each other any longer! I will go and finish my letter. And you will let me read yours, will you not, after I have shown you mine? MELLEFONT. Each word shall be submitted to your judgment; except what I must say in your defence, for I know you do not think yourself so innocent as you are. (_Accompanies Sara to the back of the stage_.) Scene II. MELLEFONT (_after walking up and down several times in thought_).