Miss Sara Sampson — Act 1
Helen Zimmern.
MISS SARA SAMPSON.
A TRAGEDY IN FIVE ACTS.
Miss Sara Sampson, the first of Lessing's tragedies, was completed in the year 1755, while Lessing was at Potsdam.
In the same year it was represented at Frankfort-on-the-Oder, and was very well received.
It was afterwards translated and acted in France, where it also met with success.
The present is the first English translation which has appeared.
DRAMATIS PERSONAE.
Sir William Sampson.
Miss Sara Sampson, _his daughter_.
Mellefont.
Marwood, _formerly_ Mellefont's _mistress_.
Arabella, _a child, daughter of_ Marwood.
Waitwell, _an old servant of_ Sir William.
Norton, _servant of_ Mellefont.
Betty, Sara's _maid_.
Hannah, Marwood's _maid_.
_The_ Innkeeper _and others_.
MISS SARA SAMPSON.
ACT I.
Scene I.
--_A room in an inn_.
Sir William Sampson, Waitwell.
SIR WILLIAM.
My daughter, here?
Here in this wretched inn?
WAITWELL.
No doubt, Mellefont has purposely selected the most wretched one in the town.
The wicked always seek the darkness, because they are wicked.
But what would it help them, could they even hide themselves from the whole world?
Conscience after all is more powerful than the accusations of a world.
Ah, you are weeping again, again, Sir!
--Sir!
SIR WILLIAM.
Let me weep, my honest old servant!
Or does she not, do you think, deserve my tears?
WAITWELL.
Alas!
She deserves them, were they tears of blood.
SIR WILLIAM.
Well, let me weep!
WAITWELL.
The best, the loveliest, the most innocent child that ever lived beneath the sun, must thus be led astray!
Oh, my Sara, my little Sara!
I have watched thee grow; a hundred times have I carried thee as a child in these arms, have I admired thy smiles, thy lispings.
From every childish look beamed forth the dawn of an intelligence, a kindliness, a---- SIR WILLIAM.
Oh, be silent!
Does not the present rend my heart enough?
Will you make my tortures more infernal still by recalling past happiness?
Change your tone, if you will do me a service.
Reproach me, make of my tenderness a crime, magnify my daughter's fault; fill me with abhorrence of her, if you can; stir up anew my revenge against her cursed seducer; say, that Sara never was virtuous, since she so lightly ceased to be so; say that she never loved me, since she clandestinely forsook me!
WAITWELL.
If I said that, I should utter a lie, a shameless, wicked lie.
It might come to me again on my death-bed, and I, old wretch, would die in despair.
No, little Sara has loved her father; and doubtless, doubtless she loves him yet.
If you will only be convinced of this, I shall see her again in your arms this very day.
SIR WILLIAM.
Yes, Waitwell, of this alone I ask to be convinced.
I cannot any longer live without her; she is the support of my age, and if she does not help to sweeten the sad remaining days of my life, who shall do it?
If she loves me still, her error is forgotten.
It was the error of a tender-hearted maiden, and her flight was the result of her remorse.
Such errors are better than forced virtues.
Yet I feel, Waitwell, I feel it, even were these errors real crimes, premeditated vices--even then I should forgive her.
I would rather be loved by a wicked daughter, than by none at all.
WAITWELL.
Dry your tears, dear sir!
I hear some one.
It will be the landlord coming to welcome us.
Scene II.
_The_ Landlord, Sir William Sampson, Waitwell.
LANDLORD.
So early, gentlemen, so early?
You are welcome; welcome, Waitwell!
You have doubtless been travelling all night!
Is that the gentleman, of whom you spoke to me yesterday?
WAITWELL.
Yes, it is he, and I hope that in accordance with what we settled---- LANDLORD.
I am entirely at your service, my lord.
What is it to me, whether I know or not, what cause has brought you hither, and why you wish to live in seclusion in my house?
A landlord takes his money and lets his guests do as they think best.
Waitwell, it is true, has told me that you wish to observe the stranger a little, who has been staying here for a few weeks with his young wife, but I hope that you will not cause him any annoyance.
You would bring my house into ill repute and certain people would fear to stop here.
Men like us must live on people of all kinds.
SIR WILLIAM.
Do not fear; only conduct me to the room which Waitwell has ordered for me; I come here for an honourable purpose.
LANDLORD.
I have no wish to know your secrets, my lord!
Curiosity is by no means a fault of mine.
I might for instance have known long ago, who the stranger is, on whom you want to keep a watch, but I have no wish to know.
This much however I have discovered, that he must have eloped with the young lady.
The poor little wife--or whatever she may be!
--remains the whole day long locked up in her room, and cries.
SIR WILLIAM.
And cries?
LANDLORD.
Yes, and cries; but, my lord, why do your tears fall?
The young lady must interest you deeply.
Surely you are not---- WAITWELL.
Do not detain him any longer!
LANDLORD.
Come, come!
One wall only will separate you from the lady in whom you are so much interested, and who may be---- WAITWELL.
You mean then at any cost to know, who---- LANDLORD.
No, Waitwell!
I have no wish to know anything.
WAITWELL.
Make haste, then, and take us to our rooms, before the whole house begins to stir.
LANDLORD.
Will you please follow me, then, my lord?
(_Exeunt_.
) Scene III.
--Mellefont's _room_.
Mellefont, Norton.
MELLEFONT (_in dressing-gown, sitting in an easy chair_).
Another night, which I could not have spent more cruelly on the rack!
--(_calls_) Norton!
--I must make haste to get sight of a face or two.
If I remained alone with my thoughts any longer, they might carry me too far.
Hey, Norton!
He is still asleep.
But is not it cruel of me, not to let the poor devil sleep?
How happy he is!
However, I do not wish any one about me to be happy!
Norton!
NORTON (coming).
Sir!
MELLEFONT.
Dress me!
--Oh, no sour looks please!
When I shall be able to sleep longer myself I will let you do the same.
If you wish to do your duty, at least have pity on me.
NORTON.
Pity, sir!
Pity on you?
I know better where pity is due.
MELLEFONT.
And where then?
NORTON.
Ah, let me dress you and don't ask.
MELLEFONT.
Confound it!
Are _your_ reproofs then to awaken together with my conscience?
I understand you; I know on whom you expend your pity.
But I will do justice to her and to myself.
Quite right, do not have any pity on me!
Curse me in your heart; but--curse yourself also!
NORTON.
Myself also?
MELLEFONT.
Yes, because you serve a miserable wretch, whom earth ought not to bear, and because you have made yourself a partaker in his crimes.
NORTON.
I made myself a partaker in your crimes?
In what way?
MELLEFONT.
By keeping silent about them.
NORTON.
Well, that is good!
A word would have cost me my neck in the heat of your passions.
And, besides, did I not find you already so bad, when I made your acquaintance, that all hope of amendment was vain?
What a life I have seen you leading from the first moment!
In the lowest society of gamblers and vagrants--I call them what they were without regard to their knightly titles and such like--in this society you squandered a fortune which might have made a way for you to an honourable position.
And your culpable intercourse with all sorts of women, especially with the wicked Marwood---- MELLEFONT.
Restore me--restore me to that life.
It was virtue compared with the present one.
I spent my fortune; well!
The punishment follows, and I shall soon enough feel all the severity and humiliation of want.
I
associated with vicious women; that may be.
I was myself seduced more often than I seduced others; and those whom I did seduce wished it.
But--I still had no ruined virtue upon my conscience.
I had carried off no Sara from the house of a beloved father and forced her to follow a scoundrel, who was no longer free.
I had----who comes so early to me?
Scene IV.
Betty, Mellefont, Norton.
NORTON.
It is Betty.
MELLEFONT.
Up already, Betty?
How is your mistress?
BETTY.
How is she?
(_sobbing_.
) It was long after midnight before I could persuade her to go to bed.
She slept a few moments; but God, what a sleep that must have been!
She started suddenly, sprang up and fell into my arms, like one pursued by a murderer.
She trembled, and a cold perspiration started on her pale face.
I did all I could to calm her, but up to this morning she has only answered me with silent tears.
At length she sent me several times to your door to listen whether you were up.
She wishes to speak to you.
You alone can comfort her.
O do so, dearest sir, do so!
My heart will break, if she continues to fret like this.
MELLEFONT.
Go, Betty!
Tell her, I shall be with her in a moment, BETTY.
No, she wishes to come to you herself.
MELLEFONT.
Well, tell her, then, that I am awaiting her---- (_Exit_ Betty.
) Scene V.
Mellefont, Norton.
NORTON.
O God, the poor young lady!
MELLEFONT.
Whose feelings is this exclamation of yours meant to rouse?
See, the first tear which I have shed since my childhood is running down my cheek.
A bad preparation for receiving one who seeks comfort.
But why does she seek it from me?
Yet where else shall she seek it?
I must collect myself (_drying his eyes_).
Where is the old firmness with which I could see a beautiful eye in tears?
Where is the gift of dissimulation gone by which I could be and could say whatsoever I wished?
She will come now and weep tears that brook no resistance.
Confused and ashamed I shall stand before her; like a convicted criminal I shall stand before her.
Counsel me, what shall I do?
What shall I say?
NORTON.
You shall do what she asks of you!
MELLEFONT.
I shall then perpetrate a fresh act of cruelty against her.
She is wrong to blame me for delaying a ceremony which cannot be performed in this country without the greatest injury to us.
NORTON.
Well, leave it, then.
Why do we delay?
Why do you let one day after the other pass, and one week after the other?
Just give me the order, and you will be safe on board to-morrow!
Perhaps her grief will not follow her over the ocean; she may leave part of it behind, and in another land may---- MELLEFONT.
I hope that myself.
Silence!
She is coming!
How my heart throbs!
Scene VI.
Sara, Mellefont, Norton.
MELLEFONT (_advancing towards her_).
You have had a restless night, dearest Sara.
SARA.
Alas, Mellefont, if it were nothing but a restless night.
MELLEFONT (_to his servant_).
Leave us!
NORTON (_aside, in going_).
I would not stay if I was paid in gold for every moment.
Scene VII.
Sara, Mellefont.
MELLEFONT.
You are faint, dearest Sara!
You must sit down!
SARA (_sits down_).
I trouble you very early!
Will you forgive me that with the morning I again begin my complaints?
MELLEFONT.
Dearest Sara, you mean to say that you cannot forgive me, because another morning has dawned, and I have not yet put an end to your complaints?
SARA.
What is there that I would not forgive you?
You know what I have already forgiven you.
But the ninth week, Mellefont!
the ninth week begins to-day, and this miserable house still sees me in just the same position as on the first day.
MELLEFONT.
You doubt my love?
SARA.
I doubt your love?
No, I feel my misery too much, too much to wish to deprive myself of this last and only solace.
MELLEFONT.
How, then, can you be uneasy about the delay of a ceremony?
SARA.
Ah, Mellefont!
Why is it that we think so differently about this ceremony!
Yield a little to the woman's way of thinking!
I imagine in it a more direct consent from Heaven.
In vain did I try again, only yesterday, in the long tedious evening, to adopt your ideas, and to banish from my breast the doubt which just now--not for the first time, you have deemed the result of my distrust.
I struggled with myself; I was clever enough to deafen my understanding; but my heart and my feeling quickly overthrew this toilsome structure of reason.
Reproachful voices roused me from my sleep, and my imagination united with them to torment me.
What pictures, what dreadful pictures hovered about me!
I would willingly believe them to be dreams---- MELLEFONT.
What?
Could my sensible Sara believe them to be anything else?
Dreams, my dearest, dreams!
--How unhappy is man!
--Did not his Creator find tortures enough for him in the realm of reality?
Had he also to create in him the still more spacious realm of imagination in order to increase them?
SARA.
Do not accuse Heaven!
It has left the imagination in our power.
She is guided by our acts; and when these are in accordance with our duties and with virtue the imagination serves only to increase our peace and happiness.
A single act, Mellefont, a single blessing bestowed upon us by a messenger of peace, in the name of the Eternal One, can restore my shattered imagination again.
Do you still hesitate to do a few days sooner for love of me, what in any case you mean to do at some future time?
Have pity on me, and consider that, although by this you may be freeing me only from torments of the imagination, yet these imagined torments are torments, and are real torments for her who feels them.
Ah!
could I but tell you the terrors of the last night half as vividly as I have felt them.
Wearied with crying and grieving--my only occupations--I sank down on my bed with half-closed eyes.
Sly nature wished to recover itself a moment, to collect new tears.
But hardly asleep yet, I suddenly saw myself on the steepest peak of a terrible rock.
You went on before, and I followed with tottering, anxious steps, strengthened now and then by a glance which you threw back upon me.
Suddenly I heard behind me a gentle call, which bade me stop.
It was my father's voice--I unhappy one, can I forget nothing which is his?
Alas if his memory renders him equally cruel service; if he too cannot forget me!
--But he has forgotten me.
Comfort!
cruel comfort for his Sara!
--But, listen, Mellefont!
In turning round to this well-known voice, my foot slipped; I reeled, and was on the point of falling down the precipice, when just in time, I felt myself held back by one who resembled myself.
I was just returning her my passionate thanks, when she drew a dagger from her bosom.
