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_ ACT I
[A-wild part of the gardens. ABLAMORE discovered leaning over ALLADINE, who is asleep.]
ABLAMORE.
Methinks sleep reigns day and night beneath these trees. Each time she comes here with me toward nightfall, she is hardly seated when she falls asleep. Alas! I must be glad even of that.... During the day, whene'er I speak to her and her look happens to encounter mine, it is hard as a slave's to whom a thing impossible has just been bidden.... Yet that is not her customary look.... I have seen her many times resting her beautiful eyes on children, on the forest, the sea, or her surroundings. She smiles at me as one smiles on a foe; and I dare not bend over her save at times when her eyes can no longer see me.... I have a few moments every evening; and all the rest of the day I live beside her with my eyes cast down.... It is sad to love too late.... Maids cannot understand that years do not separate hearts.... They have called me "The wise King."... I was wise because till now nothing had happened to me.... There are men who seem to turn events aside. It was enough that I should be about for nothing to be able to have birth.... I had suspected it of old.... In the time of my youth, I had many friends whose presence seemed to attract every adventure; but the days when I went forth with them, for the encounter of joys or sorrows, they came back again with empty hands.... I think I palsied fate; and I long took pride in this gift. One lived under cover in my reign.... But now I have recognized that misfortune itself is better worth than sleep, and that there must be a life more active and higher than waiting.... They shall see that I too have strength to trouble, when I will, the water that seems dead at the bottom of the great caldrons of the future.... Alladine, Alladine!... Oh! she is lovely so, her hair over the flowers and over her pet lamb, her lips apart and fresher than the morn.... I will kiss her without her knowing, holding back my poor white beard.... [_He kisses her._]--She smiled.... Should I pity her? For the few years she gives me, she will some day be queen; and I shall have done a little good before I go away.... They will be astonished.... She herself does not know.... Ah! here she wakes with a start.... Where are you coming from, Alladine?
ALLADINE.
I have had a bad dream....
ABLAMORE.
What is the matter? Why do you look yonder?
ALLADINE.
Some one went by upon the road.
ABLAMORE.
I heard nothing.
ALLADINE.
I tell you some one is coming.... There he is! [_She points out a young knight coming forward through the trees and holding his horse by the bridle._] Do not take me by the hand; I am not afraid.... He has not seen us....
ABLAMORE.
Who dares come here?... If I did not know.... I believe it is Palomides.... It is Astolaine's betrothed.... He has raised his head.... Is it you, Palomides?
[Enter PALOMIDES.]
PALOMIDES.
Yes, my father.... If I am suffered yet to call you by that name.... I come hither before the day and the hour....
ABLAMORE.
You are a welcome guest, whatever hour it be.... But what has happened? We did not expect you for two days yet.... Is Astolaine here, too?...
PALOMIDES.
No; she will come to-morrow. We have journeyed day and night. She was tired and begged me to come on before.... Are my sisters come?
ABLAMORE.
They have been here three days waiting for your wedding.--You look very happy, Palomides....
PALOMIDES.
Who would not be happy, to have found what he sought? I was sad of old. But now the days seem lighter and more sweet than harmless birds in the hand.... And if old moments come again by chance, I draw near Astolaine, and you would think I threw a window open on the dawn.... She has a soul that can be seen around her,--that takes you in its arms like an ailing child and without saying anything to you consoles you for everything.... I shall never understand it at all.--I do not know how it can all be; but my knees bend in spite of me when I speak of it....
ALLADINE.
I want to go in again.
ABLAMORE.
[Seeing that ALLADINE and PALOMIDES look at each other stealthily.] This is little Alladine who has come hither from the heart of Arcady.... Take hands ... Does that astonish you, Palomides?...
PALOMIDES.
My father....
[PALOMIDES' horse starts aside, frightening ALLADINE'S lamb.]
ABLAMORE.
Take care.... Your horse has frightened Alladine's lamb.... He will run away....
ALLADINE.
No; he never runs away.... He has been startled, but he will not run away.... It is a lamb my godmother gave me.... He is not like others.... He stays beside me night and day.
[Caressing it.]
PALOMIDES
(_also caressing it_).
He looks at me with the eyes of a child....
ALLADINE.
He understands everything that happens....
ABLAMORE.
It is time to go find your sisters, Palomides.... They will be astonished to see you....
ALLADINE.
They have gone every day to the turning of the road.... I have gone with them; but they did not hope yet....
ABLAMORE.
Come; Palomides is covered with dust, and he must be weary.... We have too many things to say to each other to talk here.... We will say them to-morrow.... They claim the morn is wiser than the evening.... I see the palace gates are open and seem to wait for us....
ALLADINE.
I cannot help being uneasy when I go back into the palace.... It is so big, and I am so little, and I get lost there still.... And then all those windows on the sea.... You cannot count them.... And the corridors that turn without reason, and others that never turn, but lose themselves between the walls.... And the halls I dare not go into....
PALOMIDES.
We will go in everywhere....
ALLADINE.
You would think I was not made to dwell there,--that it was not built for me.... Once I lost my way there.... I pushed open thirty doors, before I found the light of day again.... And I could not go out; the last door opened on a pool.... And the vaults that are cold all summer; and the galleries that bend back on themselves endlessly.... There are stairways that lead nowhere and terraces from which nothing can be seen....
ABLAMORE.
You who were not wont to talk, how you talk to-night!...
[Exeunt.] _
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