Miss Sara Sampson — Act 3
SIR WILLIAM SAMPSON.
There, Waitwell, take this letter to her!
It is the letter of an affectionate father, who complains of nothing but her absence.
Tell her that I have sent you on before with it, and that I only await her answer, to come myself and fold her again in my arms.
WAITWELL.
I think you do well to prepare them for your arrival in this way.
SIR WILLIAM SAMPSON.
I make sure of her intentions by this means, and give her the opportunity of freeing herself from any shame or sorrow which repentance might cause her, before she speaks verbally with me.
In a letter it will cost her less embarrassment, and me, perhaps, fewer tears.
WAITWELL.
But may I ask, Sir, what you have resolved upon with regard to Mellefont?
SIR WILLIAM SAMPSON.
Ah, Waitwell, if I could separate him from my daughter's lover, I should make some very harsh resolve.
But as this cannot be, you see, he is saved from my anger.
I myself am most to blame in this misfortune.
But for me Sara would never have made the acquaintance of this dangerous man.
I admitted him freely into my house on account of an obligation under which I believed myself to be to him.
It was natural that the attention which in gratitude I paid him, should win for him the esteem of my daughter.
And it was just as natural, that a man of his disposition should suffer himself to be tempted by this esteem to something more.
He had been clever enough to transform it into love before I noticed anything at all, and before I had time to inquire into his former life.
The evil was done, and I should have done well, if I had forgiven them everything immediately.
I wished to be inexorable towards him, and did not consider that I could not be so towards him alone.
If I had spared my severity, which came too late, I would at least have prevented their flight.
But here I am now, Waitwell!
I must fetch them back myself and consider myself happy if only I can make a son of a seducer.
For who knows whether he will give up his Marwoods and his other creatures for the sake of a girl who has left nothing for his desires to wish for and who understands so little the bewitching arts of a coquette?
WAITWELL.
Well, Sir, it cannot be possible, that a man could be so wicked---- SIR WILLIAM SAMPSON.
This doubt, good Waitwell, does honour to your virtue.
But why, at the same time, is it true that the limits of human wickedness extend much further still?
Go now, and do as I told you!
Notice every look as she reads my letter.
In this short deviation from virtue she cannot yet have learned the art of dissimulation, to the masks of which only deep-rooted vice can have recourse.
You will read her whole soul in her face.
Do not let a look escape you which might perhaps indicate indifference to me--disregard of her father.
For if you should unhappily discover this, and if she loves me no more, I hope that I shall be able to conquer myself and abandon her to her fate.
I hope so, Waitwell.
Alas!
would that there were no heart here, to contradict this hope.
(_Exeunt on different sides_.
) Scene II.
Miss Sara, Mellefont.
(Sara's _room_.
) MELLEFONT.
I have done wrong, dearest Sara, to leave you in uneasiness about the letter which came just now.
SARA.
Oh dear, no, Mellefont!
I have not been in the least uneasy about it.
Could you not love me even though you still had secrets from me?
MELLEFONT.
You think, then, that it was a secret?
SARA.
But not one which concerns me.
And that must suffice for me.
MELLEFONT.
You are only too good.
Let me nevertheless reveal my secret to you.
The letter contained a few lines from a relative of mine, who has heard of my being here.
She passes through here on her way to London, and would like to see me.
She has begged at the same time to be allowed the honour of paying you a visit.
SARA.
It will always be a pleasure to me to make the acquaintance of the respected members of your family.
But consider for yourself, whether I can yet appear before one of them without blushing.
MELLEFONT.
Without blushing?
And for what?
For your love to me?
It is true, Sara, you could have given your love to a nobler or a richer man.
You must be ashamed that you were content to give your heart for another heart only, and that in this exchange you lost sight of your happiness.
SARA.
You must know yourself how wrongly you interpret my words.
MELLEFONT.
Pardon me, Sara; if my interpretation is wrong, they can have no meaning at all.
SARA.
What is the name of your relation?
MELLEFONT.
She is--Lady Solmes.
You will have heard me mention the name before.
SARA.
I don't remember.
MELLEFONT.
May I beg you to see her?
SARA.
Beg me?
You can command me to do so.
MELLEFONT.
What a word!
No, Sara, she shall not have the happiness of seeing you.
She will regret it, but she must submit to it.
Sara has her reasons, which I respect without knowing them.
SARA.
How hasty you are, Mellefont!
I shall expect Lady Solmes, and do my best to show myself worthy of the honour of her visit.
Are you content?
MELLEFONT.
Ah, Sara!
let me confess my ambition.
I should like to show you to the whole world!
And were I not proud of the possession of such a being, I should reproach myself with not being able to appreciate her value.
I
will go and bring her to you at once.
(_Exit_.
) SARA (_alone_).
I hope she will not be one of those proud women, who are so full of their own virtue that they believe themselves above all failings.
With one single look of contempt they condemn us, and an equivocal shrug of the shoulders is all the pity we seem to deserve in their eyes.
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.
