Don Garcia of Navarre by Molière
page 29 of 71 (40%)
page 29 of 71 (40%)
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to make you happy, do not persist in remaining miserable_."
ELV. Well, what do you say to this? GARC. Ah! Madam, I say that on reading this I am quite confounded; that I see the extreme injustice of my complaints, and that no punishment can be severe enough for me. ELV. Enough! Know that if I desired that you should read the letter, it was only to contradict everything I stated in it; to unsay a hundred times all that you read there in your favour. Farewell, Prince. GARC. Alas, Madam! whither do you fly? ELV. To a spot where you shall not be, over-jealous man. GARC. Ah, Madam, excuse a lover who is wretched because, by a wonderful turn of fate, he has become guilty towards you, and who, though you are now very wroth with him, would have deserved greater blame if he had remained innocent. For, in short, can a heart be truly enamoured which does not dread as well as hope? And could you believe I loved you if this ominous letter had not alarmed me; if I had not trembled at the thunderbolt which I imagined had destroyed all my happiness? I leave it to yourself to judge if such an accident would not have caused any other lover to commit the same error; if I could disbelieve, alas, a proof which seemed to me so clear! ELV. Yes, you might have done so; my feelings so clearly expressed ought to have prevented your suspicions. You had nothing to fear; if some others had had such a pledge they would have laughed to scorn the |
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