Garden Sequence Songtext

von Stephen Sondheim

DOCTOR: Ah, look how they've let this garden go.

COLONEL RICCI: This is not Milan, Doctor.

FOSCA: I think it's rather beautiful.

COLONEL RICCI: Captain Bachetti, will you lend my cousin your arm? I'd like to have a word with the doctor.

GIORGIO: Of course.

FOSCA: I know how to walk. My cousin likes to treat me like a child.

GIORGIO: (sung) All the while as we strolled, Clara.

FOSCA: I hope I didn't frighten you the other day.

GIORGIO: (spoken) No, not at all.

(sung)
I could see you reading my letter.
All the while as we strolled.

FOSCA: I'm not afraid of death. I rather think I'd welcome dying. It's being shut up in a coffin, covered by the earth that I dread.

GIORGIO: (sung) All I saw, all I knew,
All that I could think of was you.

CLARA: (sung) All that I could think of was you.
How ridiculous.
To be looking at her, and be thinking of you.
How could anyone so unbeautiful stir my memory of you?

To feel a woman's touch,
To touch a woman's hand,
Reminded me how much I long to be with you.
How long I've been without you near and then to hear a woman's voice,
To hold a woman's arm,
To feel a woman's touch.

GIORGIO: These thoughts are bad for you. Surely if you are sick you must realize that there is also the hope that you will get better.

FOSCA: Hope in my case is in short supply.

CLARA: (sung) Perhaps it was the dress,
The fragrance of her dress -
The light perfume of silk that's warm from being in the sun
That mingles with a woman's own perfume -
The fragrance of a woman.

GIORGIO: There is no absolute happiness in anyone's life, Signora. The only happiness we can be certain of is love.

CLARA: (sung) The garden filled with you.

FOSCA: Are you speaking of friendships?

GIORGIO: I'm speaking of a superior love.

CLARA: (sung) And all that I could do, because of you, was talk of love.

CLARA & GIORGIO: (sung) Love that fills every waking moment,
Love that grows every single day,
Love that thinks everything is pure, everything is beautiful.
Everything is possible.

Love that fuses two into one,
When we think the same thoughts.

GIORGIO: Want the same things.

BOTH: Live as one.

GIORGIO: Feel as one.

BOTH: Breathe as one.

CLARA: Love that shuts away the world.

GIORGIO: (Love that shuts away the world.)

CLARA: That envelops my soul.

GIORGIO: (That envelops your soul.)

CLARA: That ennobles my life.

GIORGIO: (Your life.)

BOTH: Love that floods
Every living moment.
Love like--

CLARA: Ours.

FOSCA: Love like?

GIORGIO: (sung) Like wine.
An intoxication.
(spoken) A great blindness, if you will.

FOSCA: You can be incredibly cruel, Captain.

GIORGIO: Cruel?

FOSCA: (sung) To speak to me of love.

GIORGIO: Oh, forgive me, I didn't mean to spe--

FOSCA: To dangle words like happiness, beautiful, superior.
You can't be that naive.

You with all your books, your taste, your sensitivity.
I thought you'd understand.
The others, well, they're all alike.
Stupidity is their excuse, as ugliness is mine,
But what is yours?

I've watched you from my window.
I saw you on the day that you arrived.
Perhaps it was the way you walked, the way you spoke to your men.
I saw that you were different then.
I saw that you were kind and good.
I thought you understood.

They hear drums, you hear music,
As do I, don't you see?
We're the same.
We are different.
You and I are different.
They hear only drums.

All the time I watched from my room I would
Think of coming downstairs,
Thinking we'd meet,
Thinking you'd look at me,
Thinking you'd be repelled by what you saw.

Don't reject me.
Don't deny me, Captain.
Understand me, be my friend.
They hear drums, we hear music,
Be my friend.