JOYZELLE

BY

MAURICE MAETERLINCK

TRANSLATED BY

ALEXANDER TEIXEIRA DE MATTOS

LONDON
GEORGE ALLEN, 156 CHARING CROSS ROAD
1907

[All rights reserved]

Copyright in the United States of America, 1903,
by Eugène Fasquelle

Printed by Ballantyne, Hanson & Co.
At the Ballantyne Press

CHARACTERS

• Merlin
• Lancéor, Merlin's Son
• Joyzelle
• Arielle, Merlin's genius, invisible to the others

[Scene: Merlin's Island

JOYZELLE

ACT I

A Gallery in Merlin's Palace

[Merlin is seated near Arielle, who is sleeping on the steps of a marble staircase. It is night.

Merlin.

You sleep, my Arielle, you my inner force, the neglected power which slumbers in every soul and which I alone, till now, awaken at will.... You sleep, my docile and familiar little fairy, and your hair, straying like a blue mist, invisible to men, mingles with the moon, the perfumes of the night, the rays of the stars, the roses that shed their petals, the spreading sky, to remind us thus that nothing separates us from any existing thing and that our thought does not know where the light begins for which it hopes, nor where the shadow ends which it escapes.... You are sleeping soundly and, while you sleep, I lose all my knowledge and become like my blind brethren, who do not yet know that on this earth there are as many hidden gods as there are hearts that throb.... Alas, I am to them the genius to be avoided, the wicked sorcerer in league with their enemies!... They have no enemies, but only subjects who know not where to find their king.... They are persuaded that my secret virtue, which is obeyed by the plants and the stars, by water, stone and fire and to which the future at times reveals some of its features: they are persuaded that this new and yet so human virtue is hidden in philtres, in horrible charms, in hellish herbs and awful signs.... No, it is in myself, even as it resides in them; it is in you, my frail Arielle, in you who were once in me.... I have taken two or three bolder steps in the dark.... I have done a little earlier what they will do later.... All things will be subject to them when they have learnt at last to revive your goodwill, even as I have revived it.... But it were vain for me to tell them that you are sleeping here and to point to your dazzling grace: they would not see you.... Each one of them must find you within himself; each one of them must open as I do the tomb of his life and come to awake you as I awake you now....

[He bends over Arielle and kisses her.

Arielle.

(Waking.) Master!...

Merlin.

This is the hour, Arielle, when love must watch.... I shall often trouble your sleep in these coming days....

Arielle.

My sleep was so long that I am always relapsing into it; but I feel stronger and become happier at each new awakening that your thought imposes on me....

Merlin.

Whither are you taking my son and when shall I see him again?...

Arielle.

I was following him with my eyes in my attentive dream.... He is approaching us.... He thinks that he is lost; and his destiny leads him where happiness awaits him....

Merlin.

Will he know me?... It is many years since the prescribed proof exacted that we should live as strangers to each other; and I am eager to be able to embrace him as I did long ago, when he was a child....

Arielle.

No, fate must be allowed to decide freely; nor may the proof be falsified by the love of a father of whose existence he must not know....

Merlin.

But now that Joyzelle is here, close to us; now that he is coming towards her, does the future become more clear, can you read further into it?...

Arielle.

(Gazing upon the sea and the night, in a sort of trance.) I read in it what I read from the first moment.... Your son's fate is wholly inscribed within a circle of love. If he love, if he be loved with a wondrous love, which should be that of all men, but which is becoming so rare that at present it seems to them a dazzling folly; if he love, if he be loved with an ingenuous and yet clear-seeing love, with a love simple and pure and all-powerful as the mountain stream, with an heroic love, yet one that shall be gentler than a flower, with a love which takes all and gives back more than it takes, which never hesitates, which is not deceived; a love which nothing disconcerts and nothing repels, a love which hears and sees naught save a mysterious happiness invisible to all beside, which perceives it everywhere, in every form and every trial, and which, with a smile, will even commit crime to claim it.... If he obtain that love, which exists somewhere and is waiting for him in a heart that I seem to have recognized, his life will be longer, fairer and happier than that of other men. But, if he do not find it before the month is past, for the circle is closing; if Joyzelle's love be not that which the future holds out to him from the high skies; if the flame do not burn its full span, if a regret veil or a doubt obscure it, then death triumphs and your son is lost....

Merlin.

Ay, for all men the hour of love is an important hour!...

Arielle.

For Lancéor, alas, it is the inexorable hour!... Within these next few days he will reach the summit of his life. With groping hands, he touches happiness and the tomb.... He is dependent entirely on the last steps which he is taking and on the act of the virgin who is coming to meet him....

Merlin.

And if Joyzelle be not she whom fate selects?...

Arielle.

Indeed, I fear that the proof which we are about to attempt is the only one which it offers; but man must never lose courage in face of the future....

Merlin.

Why attempt the proof if it be uncertain?...

Arielle.

If we do not offer it, fate will offer it; it is inevitable, but it is left to chance; and that is why I try to direct its course....