Scene III.
Waitwell, Sara.
BETTY (behind the scenes).
Just come in here, if you must speak to her yourself!
SARA (looking round).
Who must speak to me? Whom do I see? Is it possible? You, Waitwell?
WAITWELL.
How happy I am to see our young lady again!
SARA.
Good God, what do you bring me? I hear already, I hear already; you bring me the news of my father's death! He is gone, the excellent man, the best of fathers! He is gone, and I--I am the miserable creature who has hastened his death.
WAITWELL.
Ah, Miss----
SARA.
Tell me, quick! tell me, that his last moments were not embittered by the thought of me; that he had forgotten me; that he died as peacefully as he used to hope to die in my arms; that he did not remember me even in his last prayer----
WAITWELL.
Pray do not torment yourself with such false notions! Your father is still alive! He is still alive, honest Sir William!
SARA.
Is he still alive? Is it true? Is he still alive? May he live a long while yet, and live happily! Oh, would that God would add the half of my years to his life! Half! How ungrateful should I be, if I were not willing to buy even a few moments for him with all the years, that may yet be mine! But tell me at least, Waitwell, that it is not hard for him to live without me; that it was easy to him to renounce a daughter who could so easily renounce her virtue, that he is angry with me for my flight, but not grieved; that he curses me, but does not mourn for me.
WAITWELL.
Ah! Sir William is still the same fond father, as his Sara is still the same fond daughter that she was.
SARA.
What do you say? You are a messenger of evil, of the most dreadful of all the evils which my imagination has ever pictured to me! He is still the same fond father? Then he loves me still? And he must mourn for me, then! No no, he does not do so; he cannot do so? Do you not see how infinitely each sigh which he wasted on me would magnify my crime? Would not the justice of heaven have to charge me with every tear which I forced from him, as if with each one I repeated my vice and my ingratitude? I grow chill at the thought. I cause him tears? Tears? And they are other tears than tears of joy? Contradict me, Waitwell! At most he has felt some slight stirring of the blood on my account; some transitory emotion, calmed by a slight effort of reason. He did not go so far as to shed tears, surely not to shed tears, Waitwell?
WAITWELL (wiping his eyes).
No, Miss, he did not go so far as that.
SARA.
Alas! your lips say no, and your eyes say yes.
WAITWELL.
Take this letter Miss, it is from him himself----
SARA.
From whom? From my father? To me?
WAITWELL.
Yes, take it! You can learn more from it, than I am able to say. He ought to have given this to another to do, not to me. I promised myself pleasure from it; but you turn my joy into sadness.
SARA.
Give it me, honest Waitwell! But no! I will not take it before you tell me what it contains.
WAITWELL.
What can it contain? Love and forgiveness.
SARA.
Love? Forgiveness?
WAITWELL.
And perhaps a real regret, that he used the rights of a father's power against a child, who should only have the privileges of a father's kindness.
SARA.
Then keep your cruel letter.
WAITWELL.
Cruel? Have no fear. Full liberty is granted you over your heart and hand.
SARA.
And it is just this which I fear. To grieve a father such as he, this I have had the courage to do. But to see him forced by this very grief-by his love which I have forfeited, to look with leniency on all the wrong into which an unfortunate passion has led me; this, Waitwell, I could not bear. If his letter contained all the hard and angry words which an exasperated father can utter in such a case, I should read it--with a shudder it is true--but still I should be able to read it. I should be able to produce a shadow of defence against his wrath, to make him by this defence if possible more angry still. My consolation then would be this-that melancholy grief could have no place with violent wrath and that the latter would transform itself finally into bitter contempt. And we grieve no more for one whom we despise. My father would have grown calm again, and I would not have to reproach myself with having made him unhappy for ever.
WAITWELL.
Alas, Miss! You will have to reproach yourself still less for this if you now accept his love again, which wishes only to forget everything.
SARA.
You are mistaken, Waitwell! His yearning for me misleads him, perhaps, to give his consent to everything. But no sooner would this desire be appeased a little, than he would feel ashamed before himself of his weakness. Sullen anger would take possession of him, and he would never be able to look at me without silently accusing me of all that I had dared to exact from him. Yes, if it were in my power to spare him his bitterest grief, when on my account he is laying the greatest restraint upon himself; if at a moment when he would grant me everything I could sacrifice all to him; then it would be quite a different matter. I would take the letter from your hands with pleasure, would admire in it the strength of the fatherly love, and, not to abuse this love, I would throw myself at his feet a repentant and obedient daughter. But can I do that? I shall be obliged to make use of his permission, regardless of the price this permission has cost him. And then, when I feel most happy, it will suddenly occur to me that he only outwardly appears to share my happiness and that inwardly he is sighing--in short, that he has made me happy by the renunciation of his own happiness. And to wish to be happy in this way,--do you expect that of me, Waitwell?
WAITWELL.
I truly do not know what answer to give to that.
SARA.
There is no answer to it. So take your letter back! If my father must be unhappy through me, I will myself remain unhappy also. To be quite alone in unhappiness is that for which I now pray Heaven every hour, but to be quite alone in my happiness--of that I will not hear.
WAITWELL (aside).
I really think I shall have to employ deception with this good child to get her to read the letter.
SARA.
What are you saying to yourself?
WAITWELL.
I was saying to myself that the idea I had hit on to get you to read this letter all the quicker was a very clumsy one.
SARA.
How so?
WAITWELL.
I could not look far enough. Of course you see more deeply into things than such as I. I did not wish to frighten you; the letter is perhaps only too hard; and when I said that it contained nothing but love and forgiveness, I ought to have said that I wished it might not contain anything else.
SARA.
Is that true? Give it me then! I will read it. If one has been unfortunate enough to deserve the anger of one's father, one should at least have enough respect for it to submit to the expression of it on his part. To try to frustrate it means to heap contempt on insult. I shall feel his anger in all its strength. You see I tremble already. But I must tremble; and I will rather tremble than weep (opens the letter). Now it is opened! I sink! But what do I see? (she reads) "My only, dearest daughter"--ah, you old deceiver, is that the language of an angry father? Go, I shall read no more----
WAITWELL.
Ah, Miss! You will pardon an old servant! Yes, truly, I believe it is the first time in my life that I have intentionally deceived any one. He who deceives once, Miss, and deceives for so good a purpose, is surely no old deceiver on that account. That touches me deeply, Miss! I know well that the good intention does not always excuse one; but what else could I do? To return his letter unread to such a good father? That certainly I cannot do! Sooner will I walk as far as my old legs will carry me, and never again come into his presence.
SARA.
What? You too will leave him?
WAITWELL.
Shall I not be obliged to do so if you do not read the letter? Read it, pray! Do not grudge a good result to the first deceit with which I have to reproach myself. You will forget it the sooner, and I shall the sooner be able to forgive myself. I am a common, simple man, who must not question the reasons why you cannot and will not read the letter. Whether they are true, I know not, but at any rate they do not appear to me to be natural. I should think thus, Miss: a father, I should think, is after all a father; and a child may err for once, and remain a good child in spite of it. If the father pardons the error, the child may behave again in such a manner that the father may not even think of it any more. For who likes to remember what he would rather had never happened? It seems, Miss, as if you thought only of your error, and believed you atoned sufficiently in exaggerating it in your imagination and tormenting yourself with these exaggerated ideas. But, I should think, you ought also to consider how you could make up for what has happened. And how will you make up for it, if you deprive yourself of every opportunity of doing so. Can it be hard for you to take the second step, when such a good father has already taken the first?
SARA.
What daggers pierce my heart in your simple words! That he has to take the first step is just what I cannot bear. And, besides, is it only the first step which he takes? He must do all! I cannot take a single one to meet him. As far as I have gone from him, so far must he descend to me. If he pardons me, he must pardon the whole crime, and in addition must bear the consequences of it continually before his eyes. Can one demand that from a father?
WAITWELL.
I do not know, Miss, whether I understand this quite right. But it seems to me, you mean to say that he would have to forgive you too much, and as this could not but be very difficult to him, you make a scruple of accepting his forgiveness. If you mean that, tell me, pray, is not forgiving a great happiness to a kind heart? I have not been so fortunate in my life as to have felt this happiness often. But I still remember with pleasure the few instances when I have felt it. I felt something so sweet, something so tranquillising, something so divine, that I could not help thinking of the great insurpassable blessedness of God, whose preservation of miserable mankind is a perpetual forgiveness. I wished that I could be forgiving continually, and was ashamed that I had only such trifles to pardon. To forgive real painful insults, deadly offences, I said to myself, must be a bliss in which the whole soul melts. And now, Miss, will you grudge your father such bliss?
SARA.
Ah! Go on, Waitwell, go on!
WAITWELL.
I know well there are people who accept nothing less willingly than forgiveness, and that because they have never learned to grant it. They are proud, unbending people, who will on no account confess that they have done wrong. But you do not belong to this kind, Miss! You have the most loving and tender of hearts that the best of your sex can have. You confess your fault too. Where then is the difficulty? But pardon me, Miss! I am an old chatterer, and ought to have seen at once that your refusal is only a praiseworthy solicitude, only a virtuous timidity. People who can accept a great benefit immediately without any hesitation are seldom worthy of it. Those who deserve it most have always the greatest mistrust of themselves. Yet mistrust must not be pushed beyond limits!
SARA.
Dear old father! I believe you have persuaded me.
WAITWELL.
If I have been so fortunate as that it must have been a good spirit that has helped me to plead. But no, Miss, my words have done no more than given you time to reflect and to recover from the bewilderment of joy. You will read the letter now, will you not? Oh, read it at once!
SARA.
I will do so, Waitwell! What regrets, what pain shall I feel!
WAITWELL.
Pain, Miss! but pleasant pain.
SARA.
Be silent! (begins reading to herself).
WAITWELL (aside).
Oh! If he could see her himself!
SARA (after reading a few moments).
Ah, Waitwell, what a father! He calls my flight "an absence." How much more culpable it becomes through this gentle word! (continues reading and interrupts herself again). Listen! he flatters himself I shall love him still. He flatters himself! He begs me--he begs me? A father begs his daughter? his culpable daughter? And what does he beg then? He begs me to forget his over-hasty severity, and not to punish him any longer with my absence. Over-hasty severity! To punish! More still! Now he thanks me even, and thanks me that I have given him an opportunity of learning the whole extent of paternal love. Unhappy opportunity! Would that he also said it had shown him at the same time the extent of filial disobedience. No, he does not say it! He does not mention my crime with one single word. (Continues reading.) He will come himself and fetch his children. His children, Waitwell! that surpasses everything! Have I read it rightly? (reads again to herself) I am overcome! He says, that he without whom he could not possess a daughter deserves but too well to be his son. Oh that he had never had this unfortunate daughter! Go, Waitwell, leave me alone! He wants an answer, and I will write it at once. Come again in an hour! I thank you meanwhile for your trouble. You are an honest man. Few servants are the friends of their masters!
WAITWELL.
Do not make me blush, Miss! If all masters were like Sir William, servants would be monsters, if they would not give their lives for them. (Exit.)
Scene IV.
SARA (sits down to write).
If they had told me a year ago that I should have to answer such a letter! And under such circumstances! Yes, I have the pen in my hand. But do I know yet what I shall write? What I think; what I feel. And what then does one think when a thousand thoughts cross each other in one moment? And what does one feel, when the heart is in a stupor from a thousand feelings. But I must write! I do not guide the pen for the first time. After assisting me in so many a little act of politeness and friendship, should its help fail me at the most important office? (She pauses, and then writes a few lines.) It shall commence so? A very cold beginning! And shall I then begin with his love? I must begin with my crime. (She scratches it out and writes again.) I must be on my guard not to express myself too leniently. Shame may be in its place anywhere else, but not in the confession of our faults. I need not fear falling into exaggeration, even though I employ the most dreadful terms. Ah, am I to be interrupted now?