happy....

Joyzelle.

Lancéor, this is terrible!... I never tremble, but I am trembling to-day.... Perhaps it means your life; and it already means mine.... What is that light which rises so quickly?... It has come to threaten us, it is going to betray us!...

Lancéor.

No, no, it is the sun rising behind the wall.... It is the innocent sun, the good May sun, which has come to delight us.... Open, then, open quickly: each minute that passes adds its dangers to the dangers which you fear.... A single movement, Joyzelle; a turn of your hand; and you really open the gates of life to me! (Joyzelle turns the key; the gate opens; Lancéor crosses the threshold.)

Lancéor.

(Taking Joyzelle in his arms.) Joyzelle!...

Joyzelle.

I am here!...

Lancéor.

I hold your hands and your eyes, your hair and your lips, in the same kiss and at the same moment, all the gifts of love which I have never had and all its presence!... My arms are so surprised that they cannot carry them; and my whole life cannot contain them.... Do not turn away your face, do not draw back your lips!...

Joyzelle.

It is not to escape you, but to be closer to you....

Lancéor.

Do not turn your head; do not deprive me of a shadow of your lashes, a gleam of your eyes: it is not the hours, but the very minutes that threaten our happiness....

Joyzelle.

I was seeking your smile....

Lancéor.

And your own meets mine in the first kiss that passes between our lips to unite our destinies.... It seems to me to-day as though I had always seen you and always clasped you and as though I were repeating, in reality, on the threshold of paradise, what I did on earth when embracing your shadow....

Joyzelle.

I used to embrace you at night when I embraced my dreams....

Lancéor.

I knew no doubt....

Joyzelle.

I knew no fear....

Lancéor.

And everything is granted me....

Joyzelle.

And everything makes me happy!...

Lancéor.

How deep your eyes are and how full of confidence!...

Joyzelle.

And how clear are yours and full of certainty!...

Lancéor.

How well I recognize them!...

Joyzelle.

And how well I know yours!...

Lancéor.

Your hands rest on my shoulders just as when I lay waiting for them without daring to wake....

Joyzelle.

And your arm is round my neck just as it was....

Lancéor.

It was thus that your eyelids used to close at the breath of love....

Joyzelle.

And it was thus, too, that the tears came to your eyes when they opened....

Lancéor.

When happiness is so great....

Joyzelle.

Unhappiness does not come so long as love binds it....

Lancéor.

Do you love me?...

Joyzelle.

Yes....

Lancéor.

Oh, how you said "yes!"... "Yes" from the depths of your heart, from the depths of your thought, from the depths of your very soul!... I knew it, perhaps; but it had to be said; and our kisses themselves did not count without it.... Now it is enough, it will feed my life; all the hatred on earth could not wipe it away nor thirty years of distress exhaust it!... I am in the light and the spring overwhelms me!... I look up to the sky and the garden awakens!... Do you hear the birds making the trees sing and repeating your smile and that wonderful "yes;" and do you see the rays that caress your hair like diamonds sparkling among the flames and the thousands of flowers that bend over us to surprise in our eyes the mystery of a love which they did not know?...

Joyzelle.

(Opening her eyes.) There was nothing here but poor, dead flowers....

[She looks around her, stupefied; for, since Lancéor's entrance, without their noticing it, the gloomy garden has become gradually transfigured by magic. The wild plants, the weeds that poisoned it have grown and each, according to its kind, has increased its flowers, blooming to a prodigious size. The puny bindweed has become a powerful creeper, whose wonderful blossoms engarland the trees weighed down with ripe fruits and peopled with miraculous birds. The pale pimpernel is now a tall shrub of a warm and tender green, with bursting flowers larger than lilies. The pale scabious has lengthened its stalks, from which spring tufts like mauve heliotrope.... Butterflies flit to and fro, the bees hum, the birds sing, the fruits swing and fall, the light streams down. The perspective of the garden has become infinitely extended; and the audience now sees, to the right, a marble basin, half-hidden behind a hedge of oleanders and turnsoles cut into arches.

Lancéor.

There is nothing here now but the flowers of life!... Look!... They are coming down, they are streaming down upon us!... They are bursting on the branches, they bend the trees, they entangle our steps, they press against one another, they crush one another, they open out wide, one within the other, they blind the leaves, they dazzle the grass; I know none of them and the spring is drunk; I have never seen flowers so disordered, so resplendent!...

Joyzelle.

Where are we?...

Lancéor.

We are in the garden which you would not open to my love....

Joyzelle.

What have we done?

Lancéor.

I have given the kiss that is given but once; and you have spoken the word that is never respoken....

Joyzelle.

(Swooning.) Lancéor, I am mad, or else we are going to die....

Lancéor.

(Supporting her.) Joyzelle, you are turning pale and your dear arms are pressing me as though you feared that a hidden enemy....

Joyzelle.

Have you not seen...?