SCENE I

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THE GREAT GALEOTO AND

FOLLY OR SAINTLINESS

_Of this edition 400 copies have been printed for England_

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THE GREAT GALEOTO

FOLLY OR SAINTLINESS

TWO PLAYS DONE FROM THE VERSE OF

_JOSÉ ECHEGARAY_

INTO ENGLISH PROSE BY

HANNAH LYNCH

LONDON <decoration>

JOHN LANE AT THE BODLEY HEAD

BOSTON <decoration>

LAMSON WOLFFE AND CO. MDCCCXCV

Edinburgh: T. and A. CONSTABLE, Printers to Her Majesty

INTRODUCTION[1]

The Spanish theatre has for so long been out of fashion that a revived

interest in it would carry us into a sort of renaissance. It is not

virgin soil, like the drama of the north which has so lately caught the

ear of Europe. This, perhaps, accounts for its lack of distinctive

originality. For even in Echegaray's notable plays, strong and original

as they are, there is an unmistakable ring of the past. We feel it is

more a revival than a youthful outburst, with all the promise of

novelty. True, it is dominated by the modern need and its restless

searching note; it must prove its mission as something more than the

mere desire to divert. Not even a sermon could be more remote than this

theatre from the old comedy of manners, of loose morals and diverting

intrigue, all weighing as lightly on the dramatist's conscience as on

the audience's. And it may be questioned if Echegaray, a professor of

mathematics as well as a dramatist and poet, could be induced to accept

Mr. Stevenson's well-known and not inappropriate classification of the

artist as of the family of Daughters of Joy. His is no neutral voice

between vice and virtue, concerned solely for the pleasure or interest

of the hour, suing approbation through laughter and wit, or sympathy

through dramatic tears. Lest his audience should fail to carry their

musings on the problems of life to the theatre in the proper modern

spirit, he starts by pricking their conscience and exciting thought that

as little relieves them from the pressure of reality as one of Ibsen's

plays—though with the latter his having nothing else in common but this

determined purpose.

-----

Footnote 1:

Part of this introduction is reprinted from an article in the

_Contemporary Review_, and my thanks are due to the publishers for the

permission.

-----

José Echegaray was born at Madrid in 1832. The years of childhood were

passed in Murcia, where at the university he studied and took out his

degrees. His tendency in youth was towards the exact sciences, with

which he still coquets in the same spirit of pride that pushed Goethe to

glory in his devotion to painting. He more readily offers to his friends

a volume of his _Modern Theories of Physics_ or the _Union of Material

Forces_ by which he is known to a select few, than one of his popular

dramas. Of the scientific value of these works I am not in a position to

offer any opinion. For career, he chose that of engineer, and, we are

told, gave evidence in this line of quite exceptional diligence and

quickness. Certain it is that in this department as well as in others

that followed, he has amply proved that in individual circumstances the

Don may be carried into a permanent frenzy of industry. In 1853 his

studies in engineering terminated. Echegaray was appointed successively

to posts in various provinces, until he returned to Madrid as professor

of the School of Engineers. Here he taught theoretical and applied

mathematics, and while building up a serious reputation in science, he

found time to study political economy, and devour every form of

literature, thus preparing for his future honours as poet and dramatist.

He took part in the revolution of 1868, and was appointed Director of

Public Works and Minister of Commerce. This post he resigned in 1872,

and shortly afterwards that of Minister of Finances, which he was forced

to give up on proclamation of the Republic. Then he emigrated to Paris,

where he composed his first play _El Libro Talonario_. In 1874 the

political situation permitted his return to Spain, and he was nominated

Minister for the third time. After that he began to hold himself more

and more aloof from public life, and took to writing for the theatre

with prodigious activity. Well advanced in middle age, he seems to have

taken Lope de Vega for his model in the matter of production. Within

twenty years he has written more than fifty plays. In a letter before

me, he offers me a choice of his recent plays (whose appearance can only

cover a couple of years, I believe), and thus names them off:—_El

Critico Incipiente_, _Los Dos Fanatismos_, _El Haroldo_, _El Milagro en

Egipto_, _Siempre en Ridiculo_, _Sic vos non vobis_, etc. etc., the

double etc. suggesting at least half a dozen more, I suppose.

This fatal facility is one of the drawbacks of Spanish talent. The race

writes without difficulty, which perhaps is the reason that it writes

without finish or distinction. Add to which in adopting French

romanticism, upon which wave it was irresistibly carried, it did but

accommodate the adoption of the natural bent of its own still mediæval

nature. For modern Spanish romanticism belongs more probably to the

sixteenth than to the nineteenth century. It is interesting to note the

rebound with which Victor Hugo's bell cast this semi-civilised and

dreaming people back into their own appropriate century. They prate

to-day in Madrid glibly enough of English improvements, clubs,

electricity, French vaudevilles, and all the pernicious refinements of

our modern civilisation. But these elements are extraneous, a sort of

diverting masquerade in their daily life. At heart they are purely

mediæval. In all the great moments on and off the stage, they forget the

silk hat and coat of civilisation, and walk and talk as if a sword still

absurdly cocked the cloak of romance.

In this hour, when foreign Shakespeares are springing up around us with

incredible profusion, it would be an agreeable task to come forward with

a Spanish Shakespeare. But Don José Echegaray is no such thing. He bears

no resemblance to the new geniuses hailed with such delight. He has none

of the subtlety of Maeterlinck, and certainly offers entertainment by

means of tricks less reminiscent of our start in modern languages. His

literary baggage reveals neither the depth nor the flashes of luminous

thought with which Ibsen startles us through an obscurity of atmosphere,

a childish baldness, and an unconventional disregard of all the

old-fashioned theories upon which the laws of dramatic criticism have

been formed. But if Echegaray is less original, he is creditably more

sane. The lack of depth carries with it a corresponding absence of

crudeness and of an artlessness often so bewildering as to leave us

imperfectly capable of distinguishing the extreme fineness of the line

between genius and insanity. The lucid air of the south clarifies

thought, and produces nothing less sober than Latin bombast and the

high-phrased moods of the Don.

What is more to be deplored in Echegaray's plays is the absence of

French art. An artist in the polished, complete sense he cannot be

described. He has none of the French dramatist's incision, none of his

delicate irony, his playfulness and humorous depravity, none of his

beautiful clarity of expression, still less of his polish, his wit, and

consummate dexterity. Poetry is his favourite form of dramatic

expression, but it is not the suave measured poetry of M. Richepin; and

while he often takes his inspiration from the Middle Ages, he offers us

nothing like the ethereal and fanciful verse of M. Armand Silvestre,

when that author condescends to forget that he is _fin de siècle_, and

seeks to please through the sweetness and delicacy of some mediæval

legend. Echegaray is poet enough to delight in these thrilling ages. But

his treatment of them generally leaves us cold. It lacks fancy and

buoyancy. Sombre passion does not adequately fill the place of absent

humour. It is often thin and false, and glaringly artificial, like the

mediæval romance of an inefficient author. It is a remarkable fact that

such a play as _Mar sin Orillas_ (Shoreless Sea) should have achieved

popularity in a town so imitatively, not intellectually, modern as

Madrid. It has no originality whatever, and offers nothing as

compensation for dulness. It is of the Middle Ages, but without the

captivating atmosphere of those plumed and belted centuries. It runs

complacently along the old dusty highroad; swords clash, knights march

off to glory and the Turkish wars, and beauty at home struggles with

parental enmity, is sore distraught and belied, and while we are

reminded in the high tone of the ancient singers, that

'Amor que á la guerra fué

Sabe Dios si volverá,'

we are confused by the stupidity of everybody.

This repertory is extended, but can hardly be called varied. The one

note of undiluted drama runs through all, and while the poet declaims

upon a lofty level, it may be said that he chiefly reaches poetry

through means of the felicitous vocables of the language he has the

privilege to write, rather than by reason of any real genius as a poet.

He is concerned more with striking situations than with development or

revelation of character. In this line he is totally lacking in diversity

and subtlety. He apprehends woman in none other but the crude, mediæval

form. To him she is simply a personality of divine and inexhaustible

love—an exalted and inalterable ideal; and whether she wears modern

raiment or the garb of remote centuries, she is never anything but a

spiritualised stain-glass outline, which affords gross and barbaric

males—Velasquez' heroes and high-toned villains—much opportunity to rant

of saints and angels, and is a subject for continuous worship,

ill-treatment, misunderstanding, and devotion to death.

The very titles of these plays have a fine melodramatic ring—_The

Avenger's Bride_, _On the Sword's Point_, _In the Bosom of Death_, and

_Death upon the Lips_, etc. In Spanish the titles are beautiful and

inspiring enough to justify choice. _En el Seno de la Muerte_ is a

particularly impressive play, which rings imagination back into the

thirteenth century almost upon a thrill with its strong Hugoesque tinge

of romance. There is no fluted fervour of lovers, no thrum of lute or

impassioned sequidilla to enliven the roll of solemn wedded passion and

betrayal. Remorse and stern hidalgic resentment stalk the stage

grandiloquently to the blare of trumpets, royal entrances and exits, and

the hum of the Roussillon wars. We have the inevitable struggle between

love and duty, the inevitable sombre judgment and full-dress sentiments

of virtue. Echegaray has apparently no understanding of vice except as

subject for castigation. The bastard Manfred, beloved of his legitimate

brother and seignor, loves his sister-in-law Beatrix. Don Jaime, the

injured husband, has all the noble and melancholy charm of a Velasquez

portrait, the model upon which the dramatist would seem to have drawn

his unvarying study of the Middle Ages Don. They all carry their black

velvet and plumes with the same high air, seem equally unacquainted with

smiles and the lighter emotions, and breathe the same unapproachable

perfection in domestic life. For each one the wife is sovereign lady,

and if they betray anger, it is the anger of heroes who never forget

that they are hidalgoes, and who are incapable of falling, upon any

provocation, into triviality or pleasantry of speech. Small blame to the

ladies of such lords if they sometimes forget their oath of allegiance,

and occasionally decline upon lesser natures. However picturesque, as

housemates these Velasquez gentlemen are beyond endurance, and deserve

to perish victims of their own relentless nobility.

Don Jaime adored his wife and loved his half-brother. Both in turn loved

him, and recognised to the full his claim upon their mutual admiration.

But this was naturally no impediment to their own frailty, though not

even Echegaray's sinners are for one moment permitted to give a cheerful

aspect to sin. It is perhaps a double unwisdom to stoop to folly when

they mean to be so persistently miserable over it. Certain it is, that

in this case the lady's choice cannot have been prompted by any desire

for a lively change. Manfred is only a more scowling, discontented

edition of the legitimate Don. 'You are sadder than ever, and your hand

avoids the touch of mine,' he complains to Beatrix in the beginning of

the second act. And she replies: 'I am ever sad. Sorrow is throned

within my bosom, and so imperious is its possession, that death alone

can free its slave.' And then when Manfred prays for death as a mutual

deliverance, she reproaches him: 'Does my love not then suffice you? If

so, live and enjoy it, or confess that of our sin the vase only contains

the bitterness, the shame and the disenchantment.'

MANFRED. Your love is but a lie, since I strain in my embrace naught but

a cold and inert marble statue. While your soul, your mind,

yourself—all that I most fondly love eludes the touch of my lips, and

my heart hears the disdainful murmur: 'This is not for the bastard.'

BEATRIX. 'Tis not so. You do not understand me.

MANFRED. Yes, I understand you. You have only loved Jaime.

BEATRIX. So deeply have I loved you, Manfred, that I have forsaken

Jaime, noble as he is, for you who are so base. I have given myself to

you, drawn by the attraction of the abyss which is your love. And I

thought that I could live and be happy under cover of my sin, but it

may not be. For ever between my breast and your arms he interposes.

They try to persuade themselves upon insufficient evidence that Jaime is

dead, but Beatrix, the more nervous and impressionable of the two,

endures the conviction of her senses that her husband lives as the added

torture of fear to insistent remorse. Every sound that disturbs the

silence, as they sit together by the fire, carries menace of his

approach. 'Why are we not happy since we love one another?' Manfred

bitterly cries, interrupting her terrified listening. Here is the

keynote of Echegaray's philosophy, whether he marshals the dead

centuries before us, or treats of the modern conscience. Even in the

less complex ages, when the world was younger and fresher, he will not

hear of obedience to instinct unpunished before even the fruit has had

time to turn to ashes.

We understand that we are commanded to contemplate unrelieved gloom of

sentiment and situation upon the entrance of Don Jaime, back from the

Roussillon wars in company with Don Pedro, king of Aragon. The guilty

lovers have an enemy in one Juana, the duenna and wife of Roger, the

squire, who, discovering Beatrix and Manfred in a passionate embrace, is

set upon by the infuriated bastard and inadvertently driven upon the

sword's point into the family vault, where the door slams upon him with

a secret spring. When Manfred has excited the king's anger by scornful

rejection of the favour of a name and title that shall give him equality

with his brother, we realise that the hour is a favourable one for

Juana's accusation. Whatever rights a sovereign may arrogate to himself

in the matter of his own morals, he is usually a keen arbitrator of the

limitations of those of his subjects. On this principle, Don Pedro shows

himself merciless to the sinners, though one happens to be his hostess

and the other his host's much-loved brother. A rational man would have

preferred to blink and turn away, with the safe conclusion that it was,

after all, none of his business. But monarchs are allowed so many other

attributes, that even out of Spain they may be fitly dispensed with

reason. In an interview with the culprits, when a saner man would have

been touched with the generous strife between them as to which should

bear the blame and punishment, he decides that both shall die. Upon

Manfred's petition, he consents that Jaime shall live in ignorance of

his wrong, but the poor fool, for all his crown, was not sufficiently

master of events to contrive this rash promise. Spanish history may

furnish a precedent of such a situation, but we are not taught that the

lives of the monarchs of the land explain it adequately. When Jaime

enters and remonstrates with Don Pedro:—'I am her owner, sir. All your

power, your crown, your greatness, the glory of Sicily and of the entire

world—what are they against Beatrix! But smoke and dust,'—the king

commutes her sentence to perpetual imprisonment, and orders the

execution of Manfred in Barcelona. Upon this Jaime threatens to carry

both away with him, forswear his king and country, and cross the

frontier. A violent quarrel ensues between him and the king, and in the

midst of recriminations, Don Pedro casts his dishonour in the teeth of

his angry subject. The unfortunate nobleman, dazed and incredulous,

reads Roger's letter, given him by Don Pedro, and falls into a

spiritless despair. He asks his sovereign's pardon, and they part

reconciled friends. Left alone by the family vault at night, he bursts

into a sonorous soliloquy. We remember a somewhat similar situation in

Victor Hugo, and are irritated by the reminiscence. There is a natural

note in his simple cry to Beatrix to speak to him before she dies—to

lie, feign, accuse him,—only speak. Also in the speech to Manfred that

follows, when he recalls the time they were playmates together, and then

tells bitterly the roll of his wrongs: 'It were kinder to kill me at

once,' Manfred cries impetuously. By a curious ineffectuality, a lack of

skill, it however falls just short of real pathos. Echegaray is never

simple enough to reach pathos. The climax has a false ring. Manfred dies

by his own hand, and, following his example, Jaime stabs himself, and

falls near him, in the shadow of the tomb.

D. JAIME. Manfred, too, lies dead, and you shortly will follow us. When

you die, where will you fall?

BEATRIX. By your side.

D. JAIME. Then come closer—'tis no lie? Answer. [_Clasps her._]

BEATRIX. No.

D. JAIME. And where will your tears flow?

BEATRIX. Over your body.

D. JAIME. Then see. You must embrace my inert body. Do not cease

weeping—so that—thus we drop into the bosom of death.

_Death on his Lips_ takes us into quite another atmosphere. We are in

foreign lands, on the distant shore of Lake Geneva, in the heart of the

Calvinist Inquisition. The Don is introduced, but only as an exile, in

the person of Miguel Servet, a famous Aragonese doctor who was martyred

at Geneva in 1553. The Calvinists are painted in befitting blackness by

a Spaniard, naturally glad of an opportunity to show that other lands

had their Inquisition as well as Spain, and cruelty in those days was to

be found as fierce elsewhere. It is a gloomy, a powerful, but not a very

interesting play. Servet is well contrasted with the Genevese, the

heaviness of the one race being dexterously made to appear so much less

amiable and well-mannered than that of the other. The heroine, Margarita

(naturally), is the usual heroine of Echegaray's choice—all heart,

devotion, generosity, sincerity, and a certain broad intelligence. He

may be trusted not to choose a fool, though he may never aspire to

striking originality in his portrayal of what he evidently regards as

the angelic sex.

_On the Sword's Point_ attains a higher level of dramatic thought. Doña

Violante is married to Don Rodrigo—the inevitable Velasquez, in plumes

and black velvet. In the first bloom of youth, a titled blackguard had

surprised and dishonoured her, and Fernando, her son, is the unsuspected

offspring of this shame. He is a fine-spirited young fellow, more fiery

and blusterous than the implacably dignified Rodrigo. He loves, and is

beloved by, Laura, the ward of his parents. An unconscious vein of

humour runs through the pompous scene, in which he is found by these

latter on his knees before the girl. Don Rodrigo is shocked at such

indelicate boldness—just like the amusing Marquis in _The Sorcerer_.

'They love each other,' Doña Violante expostulates. 'It is necessary to

be severe with youth,' the Don replies, repressing his indignation at

the bidding of his wife. Then he proceeds to point out to Fernando that

henceforth Laura's honour must be as dear to him as his own, and after

an eulogy on the virtue of the ladies of his house, he explains that if

the stain of dishonour dimmed the splendour of the name of Moncada in a

woman, it would be the duty of her husband, father, or brother to kill

her on the spot. This is not lively talk for Doña Violante, but life was

not a lively matter for women in those dull days—especially in Spain,

where it still is the reverse of exciting for them. The young man's

ardent youth puzzles Don Rodrigo, it is so unlike his own, and these

perplexities are disturbed by the titled blackguard's sudden claim to

Laura's hand—whom he describes as a mixture of Turkish houri and

Christian virgin. Thereupon ensues a painful scene between the victim

and the wrong-doer. The titled blackguard shows himself susceptible of

the feelings of a gentleman, and deplores the sin of his rash youth—does

he also not wear black velvet and a plumed cap? However, he has no mind

to renounce his claim to Laura's hand though Doña Violante kneel to him,

and Fernando swagger about with unsheathed steel. The duenna and the

squire (from whom a little humour might not unreasonably be expected if

it were possible to convict so serious a philosopher as the author with

anything like deliberate pleasantry) contrive to muddle the carriage of

Doña Violante's passionate letter to her betrayer, speaking of the fatal

night with lamentable lucidity, so that it falls into Fernando's hands,

who instantly believes that Laura is the injured woman. Some spirited

scenes ensue, and Fernando interrupts an interview in the dark as he

believes between Laura and his rival. A light reveals his mother's

shame, and when Don Rodrigo enters after Laura he does not hesitate to

sacrifice himself and the beloved by letting it appear that it was Laura

he discovered at a clandestine meeting instead of his mother. The result

is that Laura is condemned by the relentless Moncada to marry the titled

blackguard, being now too damaged an article for the son of his house.

This is a delicate dilemma for a youth with such traditions to live up

to: to have to choose between his mother's death and dishonour and the

dishonour and loss of his bride. His birth is only revealed to him by

Doña Violante to prevent the sacrilegious duel between him and his

father, and to guard the dreadful secret Fernando stabs himself. 'My

death, mother, blots out your dishonour.' The third act hurries on

through many strong effects, and the young man's death we feel to have

the appropriate majesty of the inevitable. The situation is so poignant

that there could be no other solution, and even the titled blackguard

wins our sympathy in that last tragic scene.

The same gloom and power pervade _The Avenger's Bride_, the old story of

Montague and Capulet. But here the young Montague, one Don Carlos, slays

the traditional family enemy, who happens to be the father of a

weak-sighted maiden. She emerges into the strong sunlight just in time

to recognise her father's assassin, and then is struck blind. Don Carlos

woos her under another name, and an old lover, who is an enlightened

oculist of the Middle Ages, restores her sight. Her lover Lorenzo had

promised to kill the man she should name her father's murderer. When she

cries out, 'Don Carlos,' he keeps his word, and she falls upon his

corpse 'the avenger's bride.'

What touches us more closely is Echegaray's manipulation of the modern

conscience, and its illimitable scope for reflection, for conflict, and

the many-sided drama of temptation. This is familiar ground, and we are

ever pleased to welcome a new combatant. That the Spanish dramatist

brings a novel note may be accepted after reading the curious prologue

to his _Gran Galeoto_. It is the best and most popular of Echegaray's

plays. In its printed form it is dedicated to _Everybody_, which is the

crowning insistance on the _motif_ of the prologue, and there is an

introduction by Señor Ignacio José Escobar from which I copy an

interesting statement.

'And then came that unforgettable night the 19th March 1881, the night

of the first representation of _The Great Galeoto_. There was neither

strife nor contradiction, nothing but a universal concert of

congratulation, praise, and applause. Here your treatment of a great

social problem had the good fortune to run on lines that in all eyes

seemed elevated and humane. What a splendid and legitimate satisfaction

for those among us who had hesitated to share the general opinion!'

The _Epoca_ wrote next day:—'Don José Echegaray has obtained an

indisputable, an unanimous triumph. He has treated a great social

question in a masterly manner. The great Galeoto felt the rod of shame

upon its cheek, but it applauded without a single exception. The social

vice exists, we know, and that vice was whipped with all the vigorous

energy of a Greek tragedy. Everybody recognised the truth of the

picture, though none cared to accept it as personal: but the social

moral avenged by the creative genius of Señor Echegaray owes him a

reward and satisfaction, and that reward and that satisfaction will be

the union of all classes, those who may have once in a way formed part

of the great Galeoto, and those who habitually protest against the

facile habit of slander—to show their gratitude to the poet, the one for

vengeance, and the other for the lesson received.

'A subscription not to exceed twenty reals (four shillings), which will

be devoted to some work of art, will recall to Señor Echegaray while he

lives that he may obtain triumphs as great as last night's, seeking his

inspiration in the true sentiment of art.'

To the extraordinary and self-conscious prelude of _The Great Galeoto_

which lifts a play quite out of the region of diversion, and, as the

sensible Don Julian remarks, plunges us into philosophy, the written,

not acted, prologue to _El Hijo de Don Juan_ (Don Juan's Son) may be

added as an excellent interpretation of Echegaray's personality,

revealed already with passable clearness in the dramatic prologue

quoted. He enumerates the conclusions of the critics. That the play was

inspired by Ibsen's celebrated _Ghosts_. That the passions it deals with

are more appropriate to Northern climes than to the South. That it

treats of the problem of hereditary madness. That it discusses the law

of heredity. That it is gloomy and lugubrious, with no other object than

that of inspiring horror. That it is a purely pathological drama. That

it contains nothing but the process of madness. That from the moment it

is understood that Lázaro will go mad, all interest in the work ceases,

and there remains nothing but to follow step by step the shipwreck of

enfeebled intelligence. And so on. Echegaray regards all this as the

lamentable exercise of dramatic criticism. The underlying thought of his

work is different, but he declines to enter into further explanation of

it, each scene and each phrase sufficiently explaining it already. To

touch more closely upon the matter would be perilous. Besides, he adds,

it is not his habit to defend his plays. Once written, he casts them to

their fate, without material or moral defence, and the critics are free

to tear themselves to pieces over them. There is one phrase alone that

he defends energetically, because it is borrowed from Ibsen, and appears

to him of singular beauty: 'Mother, give me the sun.' This he describes

in his prologue as 'simple, infantile, half comical, but enfolding a

world of ideas, an ocean of feeling, a hell of sorrows, a cruel lesson,

the supreme watchword of society—of the family.' He continues, quite in

the modern spirit:

'A generation consumed by vice, which carries in its marrow the venom

of impure love, in whose corrupted blood the red globules are mixed

with putrid matter, must ever fall by degrees into the abysm of

idiocy. Lázaro's cry is the last glimmer of a reason dropping into the

eternal darkness of imbecility. At that very hour Nature awakes, and

the sun rises; it is another twilight that will soon be all light.

'Both twilights meet, cross, salute in recognition of eternal

farewell, at the end of the drama. Reason, departing, is held in the

grip of corrupting pleasure. The sun, rising, with its immortal call,

is pushed forward by the sublime force of Nature.

'Down with human reason, at the point of extinction: hail to the sun

that starts another day! 'Give me the sun,' Lázaro cries to his

mother. Don Juan also begs it through the tresses of the girl of

Tarifa.

'On this subject there is much to be said; it provokes much

reflection. If indeed our society—but what the deuce am I doing with

philosophy? Let each one solve the problem as best he can, and ask for

the sun, the horns of the moon, or whatever takes his fancy. And if

nobody is interested in the matter, it only proves that the modern Don

Juan has engendered many children without Lázaro's talent.

'Respectful salutations to the children of Don Juan.'

From all this it will be understood that Echegaray presses into the

service of pleasure the desperate problems of our natural history, and

instead of laughter confronts us with mournful gravity; asks us to stand

aghast at inherited injustice, and to doubt with him the wisdom of

Providence at sight of such undiminished and idle wickedness in man, and

such an accumulation of unmerited suffering. Now-a-days we are

inordinately engrossed by such issues, and life weighs more heavily upon

our shoulders than it did upon our fathers. The good old spirit of fun

is fast being trodden out of us by the pervading sense of a mission, and

the laborious duty of converting somebody to something. We no longer go

to the theatre to weep over fictitious wrongs and smile at imaginary

joys. We go to study what we are pleased to call life; to sip at the

founts of philosophy, to hear a sermon. It is not exhilarating, but we

thankfully take the draught of wisdom offered us, and go our ways

without a murmur that we have been depressed rather than entertained.

Cervantes, with old-fashioned sanity of judgment, condemned the practice

of preaching sermons through the veil of fiction. What sort of

reflection would the pathological novel and drama inspire in so wise and

witty an author? He might be led to create a type of character even more

mad than the Knight Errant.

_El Hijo de Don Juan_ (Don Juan's Son) is an infinitely crueller and

more disagreeable play than _Ghosts_ because it is more lucid, more

direct. The characters themselves are more carefully drawn, and we have

a closer actual acquaintance with them. Here there is not one victim

only, but two. Don Juan, the middle-aged _roué_, has a friend, also a

middle-aged _roué_. The daughter of his friend, Carmen, is consumptive,

and is betrothed to his son, Lázaro, who is subject to vertigo. The play

opens with three elderly _roués_, all ill-preserved after a life of

scandal, holding converse the reverse of edifying over tobacco and

alcohol. Here Echegaray shows how little he means to mince matters by

the remarks he puts into the mouth of one of them in reply to Don Juan's

boast that the genius of his son is inherited from him. Paternal

inheritance would be nothing but rheum or neurosis—'the sediment of

pleasure and the residuum of alcohol.' Upon this Don Juan launches into

poetry and describes the single moment in which his soul soared above

material enjoyments and sighed for the glorious and impossible. It was

after an orgy, and as his half-closed eyes saw the sun rise over the

Guadalquivir through the silky waves of a girl's hair, he understood the

beauty of poetry and Nature, and stretched out a hand to clutch the

splendid orb. This desire is afterwards recalled to him in a moment of

surprising horror, when his brilliant and beloved son, sinking into

imbecility, sees the rising sun, and cries: 'How lovely! Mother, give me

the sun.' 'And I also wanted it once,' Don Juan exclaims: 'My God! my

son! Lázaro!'

Don Juan, as might be inferred from his name, carries on intrigues with

ballet-girls and servant-maids under the nose of his wife and son.

Lázaro seems blind enough to parental delinquencies. Not, as he explains

himself when complaining of broken health, that he has been a saint

because he has eschewed excesses. The scene where he first appears

ailing and stupid is singularly painful, above all, towards the end,

when, after an outburst of lucid eloquence, he falls drowsily upon the

sofa, and feeling sleep upon him, begs that Carmen, his betrothed,

should not be permitted to see him in a ridiculous attitude.

XAVIER. Unless you are as beautiful as Endymion she shall not enter.

[_Pause. Xavier walks about; Lázaro begins to sleep._]

LÁZARO. Xavier, Xavier!

XAVIER. What?

LÁZARO. Now I am—half asleep—how do I look?

XAVIER. Very poetical.

LÁZARO. Good. Thanks—very poetical. [_Dreamily._]

The second act is somewhat livelier, and contains more spirited

contrasts. That Echegaray could excel in lighter comedy may be seen in

an amusing scene between the serious son and the dissipated,

good-natured father.

Don Juan is alone with his son, who is walking restlessly about. The

father asks his son what he is thinking of, and then apologises for

disturbing weighty thought. Lázaro listlessly replies that his

imagination was wandering, and he wandering after it. When he has

received many assurances of not being in the poet's way, Don Juan calls

for sherry, the Parisian newspapers, and _Nana_. Caught laughing over

_Nana_, he asserts his horror of immoral books, and his conviction that

literature is going to the dogs.

LÁZARO. Zola is a great writer. Ah, I've caught the idea I was seeking.

[_Sits down to write._]

There is here a little humorous by-play between the servant and Don

Juan, and afterwards a reference to the lugubrious theme in converse

between her and Lázaro, whose listlessness, courtesy and musing, make an

admirable relief against the alert and fussy affection and frivolity of

his father.

DON JUAN. Ha, ha! witty, exceedingly witty. Full of salt; hot as red

pepper. _Gil Blas_ is the only paper worth reading.

LÁZARO. An interesting article? What is it about? Let me see.

DON JUAN. [_Hastily ramming the paper into his pocket._] A dull and

shocking article. I must take it away, for the mischief would be in it

if it fell into Carmen's hands.

LÁZARO. You are quite right. [_Beginning to walk again._]

DON JUAN. I hadn't finished it. I must finish it later. [_Takes up

'Nana.'_] Stupendous! Monumental enough to make one die of laughing.

Lord! why do we read but for amusement's sake? Then give us diverting

books. [_Laughing._]

LÁZARO. Is it a witty book?

DON JUAN. [_In altered voice._] Perhaps. But this light literature soon

wearies. [_Seeing Lázaro approach, he hides 'Nana' in another

pocket._] Have you anything substantial to read—really substantial?

LÁZARO. [_Looking through his books._] Do you like Kant?

DON JUAN. Kant? Do you say Kant? The very thing. He was always my

favourite author. When I was young I fell asleep every night over

Kant. [_Aside._] Who the deuce is he?

LÁZARO. If you like I will—— [_Looking for a passage._]

DON JUAN. No, my son. Any part will do, if it can be read in divisions.

Let me see. Don't trouble about me. Write, my son, write. [_Lázaro

begins to write, and Don Juan reads._] 'Beneath the aspect of

relation, third moment of taste, the beautiful appears to us the final

form of an object, without semblance to finality.' The Devil!

[_Holding book away and contemplating it in terror._] The devil! 'Or

as a finality without end.' There are people who understand this!

'Since it is called the final form to the causality of any conception

with relation to the object.' Let me see [_holding book still further

off_]; 'final form to the causality.' 'Pon my word, I'm perspiring.

[_Wipes his forehead._] 'Conscience is this finality without end, is

the play of the cognitive forces.' What! 'The play of cognitive ...

the play' ... If it were play I should understand it. 'Conscience of

this internal causality is what constitutes æsthetic pleasure.' If I

continue I shall have congestion. Jesus, Mary, and Joseph! Only think

that Lázaro understands the finality without end, the causality and

the play of the cognitive forces. Heavens! what a fellow! [_Reads

again._] 'The principle of the methodical conformity of nature is the

transcendental principle of the strength of judgment.' [_Strikes the

table._] I should lose myself if I read more. But what a fellow, who

can read such stuff and keep sane!

LÁZARO. Does it interest you?

DON JUAN. Immensely. What depth! [_Aside._] I am five minutes falling

into it and haven't yet reached the bottom. I should think it did

interest me indeed. But, frankly, I prefer——

LÁZARO. Hegel?

DON JUAN. Just so (_Nana_).

After talk of Lázaro's health and engagement, Don Juan, learning that

the young man is pensive or preoccupied, solely because he is projecting

a drama, says he will leave him to thought. Glancing into Kant, he

mutters, 'The—the—cognitive forces—the—the—finality,—yes, the finality.'

'Work, my son, work. Above all, write nothing immoral.' He drinks off a

glass of sherry, and regretfully remarks that this finality has an end;

then marches away with the bottle, _Gil Blas_, and _Nana_ to study in

solitude.

This is the sole touch of comedy in a play of ever increasing gloom,

pervaded by the stupor of the hero and the cough of the heroine. 'My

father loves me dearly, Carmen remarks to Dolores, Don Juan's embittered

wife. 'Then he ought to have given you stronger lungs,' the elder woman

retorts, with shocking directness. It is indeed, as Echegaray complains

the critics assert, a pathological drama. When his friends are not

discussing the symptoms of Lázaro's strange malady, he himself is

enumerating them in merciless monologues. He talks of his greatness, of

his fame, of the popularity of his works, and then falls into childish

drivel and longs for playthings. 'His head is not firm,' says Don

Nemesis to Carmen's father, in dubiety before the prospect of the

marriage; 'that is why he is so stupendous at times, and all the world

calls him a genius. Put no trust in geniuses, Timotheus. A genius may

walk down one street, and hear the people cry, "The genius!" Let him

round the corner into another street, and he will hear the street arab

shout after him, "The lunatic!" Much talent is decidedly a dangerous

thing.' 'God defend us from it!' piously exclaims the elderly _roué_. 'I

have always been very careful not to cultivate it.'

It would be difficult to conceive a more needlessly disagreeable scene

than the interview between the celebrated brain doctor and Lázaro, who,

the night before, has been consulted by Dolores on behalf of a nephew,

and innocently, but with terrible frankness, discusses the case with the

unfortunate victim himself. 'We cannot with impunity corrupt the sources

of life,' says Doctor Bermúdez, in the high scientific manner, without

noticing the increasing emotion of his companion; 'the son of such a

father must soon fall into madness or idiocy.' 'Ah! No! What? My father!

I—It is a lie!' Lázaro burst out, in frantic horror. When the poor

mother enters the scene and brings her maternal note of despair to the

son's distracted terror, we feel that the modern drama has reached a

pitch of tragedy unapprehended in healthier and more barbaric ages.

'Lose one's brains as one might lose a hat!' exclaims Don Juan when

enlightened. 'Bah! idiots are born so.... but a man of genius! ...

Lázaro, who understands _the finality without end_ as he knows the

_Paternoster_!'

DOLORES. [_Despairingly._] But if it were true? If it were true? And

then? Oh! why was I born? [_Approaching Don Juan who retreats._]

Through you have I lost my illusions, stained my youth, debased my

life, forfeited my dignity—through you! And after twenty years of

sacrifices, to be worthy of Lázaro! ... good for his sake, loyal for

him, resigned for him, honourable for him, and to-day! ... No, you

have always been a scoundrel; but for once you must be right.

Impossible! impossible! God could not will it.

DON JUAN. Good, I have always been a scoundrel. What more? But don't

remember it now; above all, don't say it. Say that you forgive me.

Forgive me, Dolores.

DOLORES. What does it matter?

DON JUAN. It matters to us both. If you should not forgive me, and if

God should remember to punish me, and punish me through my Lázaro!

Pitiful is the poor mother's wavering between softness and bitterness.

At one moment she pardons him with all her heart, or only bargains that

he shall help her to save their boy. And then when he vows to do so with

his whole soul and the remainder of his life, she retorts cruelly, 'With

what life you have left; what Heaven, in its mercy, still grants you.'

'Dolores!' the poor wretch exclaims, and again she softens: 'It is true;

I had forgiven you.' Upon this the elderly scapegoat brightens and

mentions Paris, Germany, England—'the English know so much. Bah! there

is a good deal of science scattered over the world.' 'Then let us gather

it all for Lázaro.'

This desperate situation is relieved by the entrance of Carmen's father

in the black of etiquette, strictly solemn as befits a Spanish father

offering his daughter in marriage to his old chum. He says reprovingly:

'Do not embrace me. Don't you see that I am all in black—in the garb of

etiquette? It is a very solemn occasion. Call everybody except

Lázaro—him later. Solemnity above all.' The afflicted parents have

decided to conceal Lázaro's calamity from the world, and make a

heart-broken effort to welcome the betrothal with delight, and the gloom

of the situation is deepened by the young man's miserable behaviour when

called to his beloved.

LÁZARO. Carmen! Mine, mine! I may take her, clasp her in my arms!

inflame her with my breath! drink her with my eyes! I may if I like!

DON JUAN. Yes, yes, but enough.

LÁZARO. What infamy! What treason! Carmen!

CARMEN. [_Running to him._] Lázaro!

LÁZARO. Go, away! Why do you come to me? You cannot be mine. Never,

never, never.

CARMEN. Do you give me up? Ah, I have already felt it. Mother! [_Takes

refuge in his mother's arms._]

Nobody understands. Carmen's father is indignant. Lázaro's confidential

friend asks if he has gone mad, and Lázaro, bewildered, turns

despairingly to Don Juan: 'Father, father. You are my father. Save me.'

'With my life, my son.' 'You gave me life, but it is not enough. Give me

life to live, to love, to be happy. Give me life for Carmen's sake. Give

me more life, or cursed be that which you have given me.'

The third act is rendered more sombre if possible from the shabby

chatter and airs of aged rake on the part of Carmen's father, with which

it starts. We are introduced to the Tarifa girl, Don Juan's old

mistress, now pensioned and respectably established on his estate on the

banks of the Guadalquivir. Deeper and deeper are we forced to wade

through unrelenting shadow. Now it is the frivolous Don Timoteo, sipping

his manzanilla, and sneering at the young generation as personated by

his daughter Carmen, Lázaro, and Lázaro's friend, the girl with her

affected lungs, Lázaro with his dementia, and his friend formal and

headachy. 'Ah, in my day we were other,' he sighs. 'Perhaps,' retorts

the friend, 'it is because you were—_other_ then that we are so now.'

Then it is Lázaro, rough, distrustful, and sly, completely altered,

afraid to sleep because he does not know how it might be upon his

awakening or if he should ever awake, with swift leaps from childish

drivel into the Don's plumed phrases, forgetful of modern raiment, and

swaggering through imagery and sonorous syllables as if a sword clanked

by his side and he carried the spurs of chivalry. And then the poor

victim falls to drinking with his father's old mistress, and when

half-drunk and wholly mad, plots with her to carry off Carmen. When she

cries out that 'farewell' means tears, he exclaims inconsequently: 'Then

you, too, will cry. We will all cry ... Laughing fatigues, crying

rests.'

Quite gay and reckless, he faces Carmen to propose elopement to her. He

laments the former coldness of his words and moods, the insufficiency of

the vulgar tongue to express passion so burning and impetuous as his,

and terrifies her by his wild and flowery volubility. There is night all

around him except for the ray of intense light that encircles her face.

On that he concentrates all that remains to him of life, of manhood, of

feeling, thought and love. He descends from this into weak complaining.

Her happiness is threatened by inimical conspiracies, and yet how is he

to defend her? He fancies he is in a desert full of sand, plagued with

unquenchable thirst and menaced by a falling heaven. He mixes up in the

dreariest way the sands of the desert and the old applause that greeted

his genius, wonders if either will have an end, then doubts the end of

anything, and implores Carmen to save him. 'Help me. Look at me, speak,

laugh, cry, do something, Carmen, to keep me from wandering into the

desert.' But already his look is vague, and he has ceased to see her. In

vain she cries to him that she is near, weeps over him, holds him to

her. 'I am Carmen, look at me. The little head you were wont to love so

is close to your lips. I am smiling at you. Laugh, Lázaro, answer me.

Wake up! Surely you hear me, you see me!' When his mother comes in

response to the girl's agonised cry, a glimmer of intelligence gives a

sort of dignity to his incoherent words. He wants his mother to console

him, for he has to say 'a long, a sad, and solemn farewell to Carmen.'

The girl protests she will not leave him, when he irritably orders her

away—a great way off. He loved her much, but now it is adieu eternally.

He only wishes now to be alone with his parents, until memory suddenly

carries him back into the time of quarrel, reproaches, and jealousies of

those two in his childhood. 'Don't contradict me, father; you used to

quarrel and make me afraid.' He passionately orders him away, too, with

Carmen, and turns for comfort to his mother. Then he remembers his

school troubles, how his mother coldly parted with him, and to guard

against complete loneliness, calls for Paca, his father's old mistress.

'Come, I am young and wish to live,' he cries, and when we find Don Juan

aroused to indignation and threatening to fling the Tarifa girl over the

balcony into the river if she does not instantly retire, we are ready to

hail the mercifulness of Ibsen. This is to carry a sermon to an

intolerable length, and drive us so out of love with both philosophy and

science as to paint unreason with a double allurement. A father kneeling

to his mad son to let an old mistress go, and the son, struggling out of

the gathering torpor of intelligence to stare at the rising sun:—

'Mother, how lovely!'

'Lázaro!'

'So lovely! Mother, so lovely! Give me the sun.'

'My God! I also wanted it once,'

sobs Don Juan.

'For ever!'

is the last lugubrious note of Dr. Bermúdez.

It is a relief to turn from this ghastly tragedy to the brighter

movement of _El Gran Galeoto_. My printed copy of this play shows it to

have run to the twentieth edition, which, for an unreading land like

Spain, is an enormous sale. Bright is perhaps a misleading term, for the

whole is tinged with the profound melancholy that strikes us in the

Spanish gaze, in its character and in the tristful note of its popular

songs and dances. The English are supposed to take their pleasures

sadly. The saying were more appropriate to the rather dreary race beyond

the Pyrenees. Whatever may be their preoccupation (generally speaking it

is dulness or an empty mind they are afflicted with rather than sadness)

they give the foreigner the impression of being the wholesale victims of

a shattered organ which we have the habit of associating with the

affections.

In these two dramas—_Don Juan's Son_ and _The Great Galeoto_—enough will

be understood of the passion of gravity with which the Spanish dramatist

enters into the obscurer and less picturesque tragedies of life. Love

with him is not the sentimental sighing of maids and boys, as he again

shows in _Lo Sublime en lo Vulgar_, but the great perplexed question of

married infelicity and misunderstanding. Don Julian dies broken-hearted

and wilfully deceived, and his deception it is that forges the tempered

happiness of his rival. In _Lo Sublime en lo Vulgar_ we have two diverse

husbands: Richard, an airy social success, full of elegant phrases,

befittingly tailored, and of manners the best—the sort of man destined

to float to the surface in all circumstances, and minuet with grace

round the ugliest corner. Bernard, whom he betrays and laughs at, is the

commonplace, scarce presentable husband, married by a refined and

poetical creature for his money, and blushed for by her at every moment

while she is solacing herself with the elegant improprieties of her

friend's husband, Richard. Here we have another picture of marital

jealousy, justifiable in this case, and perhaps for that reason more

merciful. Instead of turning from his faithless wife, the insignificant

and vulgar Bernard wins her to him and to atonement by an unpretentious

magnanimity, and the play ends hopefully with Richard's cry to his wife:

'Louisa, pardon!—and forget!' And Bernard, turning to Inez, his wife,

explains his generosity in sonorous verse: 'Honour goes from the soul

into the depth, and in the world I put no trust. Since my honour is my

own, I understand it infinitely better than the world.'

Not even Tolstoi, with all that delicacy and keenness of the Russian

conscience, that profound seriousness, which move us so variously in his

great books, has a nobler consciousness of the dignity of suffering and

virtue than this Spanish dramatist. And not less capable is he of a

jesting survey of life. Echegaray writes in no fever of passion, and

wastes no talent on the niceties of art. The morality and discontent

that float from the meditative North have reached him in his home of

sunshine and easy emotions, and his work is pervaded nobly by its

spirit. And unlike Ibsen, he illuminates thought with sane and connected

action. Discontent never leads him to the verge of extravagance.

Extravagance he conceives to be a part of youth, addicted to bombast and

wild words. Man trades in other material than romantic language and

rhodomontade. Hence he brings emphasis and plain speech to bear upon him

when youth has had its fill through the long-winded, high coloured

phrases of his scribbling heroes. Thought, perhaps, travels too

persistently along the shadowed paths, and we should be thankful to find

our world reflected through his strong glass, dappled with a little of

the uncertain but lovely sunshine that plays not the least part in the

April weather of our life here.

The note of unwavering sadness depresses. But, at least, it is not

ignoble, and he conceives it borne with so much resignation and dignity

that if the picture carries with it the colours of frailty, it brings a

counterbalancing conception of the inherent greatness of man.

HANNAH LYNCH.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

THE GREAT GALEOTO

A PLAY IN THREE ACTS

WITH A PROLOGUE

------------------------------------------------------------------------

PERSONS OF THE DRAMA

TEODORA, Wife of

DON JULIAN.

DONA MERCEDES, Wife of

DON SEVERO.

PEPITO, Their Son.

ERNEST.

A WITNESS.

TWO SERVANTS.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

SCENE—_Madrid of our day._

PROLOGUE

_A study; to the left a balcony, on right a door; in the middle a table

strewn with papers and books, and a lighted lamp upon it. Towards the

right a sofa. Night._

SCENE I

ERNEST. [_Seated at table and preparing to write._] Nothing—impossible!

It is striving with the impossible. The idea is there; my head is

fevered with it; I feel it. At moments an inward light illuminates it,

and I see it. I see it in its floating form, vaguely outlined, and

suddenly a secret voice seems to animate it, and I hear sounds of

sorrow, sonorous sighs, shouts of sardonic laughter ... a whole world

of passions alive and struggling.... They burst forth from me, extend

around me, and the air is full of them. Then, then I say to myself:

''Tis now the moment.' I take up my pen, stare into space, listen

attentively, restraining my very heart-beats, and bend over the

paper.... Ah, but the irony of impotency! The outlines become blurred,

the vision fades, the cries and sighs faint away ... and nothingness,

nothingness encircles me.... The monotony of empty space, of inert

thought, of dreamy lassitude! and more than all the monotony of an

idle pen and lifeless paper that lacks the life of thought! Ah! How

varied are the shapes of nothingness, and how, in its dark and silent

way, it mocks creatures of my stamp! So many, many forms! Canvas

without colour, bits of marble without shape, confused noise of

chaotic vibrations. But nothing more irritating, more insolent, meaner

than this insolent pen of mine [_throws it away_], nothing worse than

this white sheet of paper. Oh, if I cannot fill it, at least I may

destroy it—vile accomplice of my ambition and my eternal humiliation.

Thus, thus ... smaller and still smaller. [_Tears up paper. Pauses._]

And then! How lucky that nobody saw me! For in truth such fury is

absurd and unjust. No, I will not yield. I will think and think, until

either I have conquered or am crushed. No, I will not give up. Let me

see, let me see ... if in that way——

SCENE II

_Ernest. Don Julian on the right, in evening-dress,

with overcoat upon his arm._

D. JULIAN. [_At the door, without entering._] I say, Ernest!

ERNEST. Don Julian!

D. JULIAN. Still working? Do I disturb you?

ERNEST. [_Rising._] Disturb me! What a question, Don Julian! Come in,

come in. And Teodora?

[_Don Julian enters._]

D. JULIAN. We have just come from the Opera. She has gone upstairs with

my brother, to see something or other that Mercedes has bought, and I

was on my way to my room when I saw your light, so I stopped to say

good-night.

ERNEST. Was there a good house?

D. JULIAN. As usual. All our friends inquired after you. They wondered

you were not there too.

ERNEST. That was kind of them.

D. JULIAN. Not more than you deserve. And how have you improved the

shining hours of solitude and inspiration!

ERNEST. Solitude, yes; inspiration, no. It shuns me though I call on it

never so humbly and fondly.

D. JULIAN. It has failed at the rendezvous?

ERNEST. And not for the first time, either. But if I have done nothing

else, at least I have made a happy discovery.

D. JULIAN. What?

ERNEST. That I am a poor devil.

D. JULIAN. The deuce! That's a famous discovery.

ERNEST. Nothing less.

D. JULIAN. But why are you so out of sorts with yourself? Is the play

you talked of the other day not going on?

ERNEST. How can it? The going on is done by me going out of my wits.

D. JULIAN. How is this? Both the drama and inspiration are faithless to

my poor friend.

ERNEST. This is how I stand. When I first conceived the idea, I imagined

it full of promise, but when I attempt to give it form, and vest it in

an appropriate stage garb, the result shows something extraordinary,

difficult, undramatic and impossible.

D. JULIAN. How is it impossible? Come, tell me. You've excited my

curiosity. [_Sits down on the sofa._]

ERNEST. Imagine the principal personage, one who creates the drama and

develops it, who gives it life and provokes the catastrophe, who,

broadly, fills and possesses it, and yet who cannot make his way to

the stage.

D. JULIAN. Is he so ugly, then? So repugnant or bad?

ERNEST. Not so. Bad as you or I may be—not worse. Neither good nor bad,

and truly not repugnant. I am not such a cynic—neither a misanthrope,

nor one so out of love with life as to fall into such unfairness.

D. JULIAN. What, then, is the reason?

ERNEST. The reason, Don Julian, is that there is no material room in the

Scenario for this personage.

D. JULIAN. Holy Virgin! What do you mean? Is it by chance a mythological

drama with Titans in it?

ERNEST. Titans, yes, but in the modern sense of the word.

D. JULIAN. That is to say——?

ERNEST. That is to say, this person is ... _everybody_.

D. JULIAN. _Everybody!_ You are right. There is no room for everybody on

the stage. It is an incontrovertible truth that has more than once

been demonstrated.

ERNEST. Then you agree with me?

D. JULIAN. Not entirely. Everybody may be condensed in a few types and

characters. This is matter beyond my depth, but I have always

understood that the masters have more than once accomplished it.

ERNEST. Yes, but in my case it is to condemn me, not to write my drama.

D. JULIAN. Why?

ERNEST. For many reasons it would be difficult to explain,—above all, at

this late hour.

D. JULIAN. Never mind. Give me a few.

ERNEST. Look! Each individual of this entire mass, each head of this

monster of a thousand heads, of this Titan of the century, whom I call

_everybody_, takes part in my play for a flying moment, to utter but

one word, fling a single glance. Perhaps his action in the tale

consists of a smile, he appears but to vanish. Listless and

absent-minded, he acts without passion, without anger, without guile,

often for mere distraction's sake.

D. JULIAN. What then?

ERNEST. These light words, these fugitive glances, these indifferent

smiles, all these evanescent sounds and this trivial evil, which may

be called the insignificant rays of the dramatic light, condensed to

one focus, to one group, result in conflagration or explosion, in

strife and in victims. If I represent the whole by a few types or

symbolical personages, I bestow upon each one that which is really

dispersed among many, and such a result distorts my idea. I must bring

types on the stage whose guile repels and is the less natural because

evil in them has no object. This exposes me to a worse consequence, to

the accusation of meaning to paint a cruel, corrupted, and debased

society, when my sole pretention is to prove that not even the most

insignificant actions are in themselves insignificant or lost for good

or evil. For, concentrated by the mysterious influences of modern

life, they may reach to immense effects.

D. JULIAN. Say no more, my friend. All this is metaphysics. A glimmer of

light, perhaps, but through an infinitude of cloud. However, you

understand these things better than I do. Letters of exchange, shares,

stock, and discount, now—that's another matter.

ERNEST. No, no; you've common sense, and that's the chief thing.

D. JULIAN. You flatter me, Ernest.

ERNEST. But you follow me?

D. JULIAN. Not in the least. There ought to be a way out of the

difficulty.

ERNEST. If that were all!

D. JULIAN. What! More?

ERNEST. Tell me what is the great dramatic spring?

D. JULIAN. My dear fellow, I don't exactly know what you mean by a

dramatic spring. All I can tell you is that I have not the slightest

interest in plays where love does not preponderate—above all

unfortunate love, for I have enough of happy love at home.

ERNEST. Good, very good! Then in my play there can be little or no love.

D. JULIAN. So much the worse. Though I know nothing of your play, I

suspect it will interest nobody.

ERNEST. So I have been telling you. Nevertheless, it is possible to put

in a little love,—and jealousy too.

D. JULIAN. Ah, then, with an interesting intrigue skilfully developed,

and some effective situations——

ERNEST. No, nothing of the sort. It will be all simple, ordinary, almost

vulgar ... so that the drama will not have any external action. The

drama evolves within the personages: it advances slowly: to-day takes

hold of a thought, to-morrow of a heart-beat, little by little,

undermines the will.

D. JULIAN. But who understands all this? How are these interior ravages

manifested? Who recounts them to the audience? In what way are they

evident? Must we spend a whole evening hunting for a glance, a sigh, a

gesture, a single word? My dear boy, this is not amusement. To cast us

into such depths is to hurl us upon philosophy.

ERNEST. You but echo my own thought.

D. JULIAN. I have no wish to discourage you. You best know what you are

about—there. Though the play seems rather colourless, heavy,

uninteresting, perhaps if the _dénoûment_ is sensational—and the

explosion—eh?

ERNEST. Sensation! Explosion! Hardly, and that only just upon the fall

of the curtain.

D. JULIAN. Which means that the play begins when the curtain falls?

ERNEST. I am inclined to admit it. But I will endeavour to give it a

little warmth.

D. JULIAN. My dear lad, what you have to do is to write the _second_

play, the one that begins where the first ends. For the other,

according to your description, would be difficult to write, and is not

worth the trouble.

ERNEST. 'Tis the conclusion I have come to myself.

D. JULIAN. Then we agree, thanks to your skill and logic. And what is

the name?

ERNEST. That's another difficulty. I can find none.

D. JULIAN. What do you say? No name either?

ERNEST. No, unless, as Don Hermogenes[2] says, we could put it into

Greek for greater clarity.

-----

Footnote 2:

A pedant in Moratin's _Comedia Nueva_, who quotes Greek incessantly to

make himself better understood.—_Tran._

-----

D. JULIAN. Of a surety, Ernest, you were dozing when I came in. You have

been dreaming nonsense.

ERNEST. Dreaming! yes. Nonsense! perhaps. I talk both dreams and

nonsense. But you are sensible and always right.

D. JULIAN. In this case it does not require much penetration. A drama in

which the chief personage cannot appear; in which there is hardly any

love; in which nothing happens but what happens every day; that begins

with the fall of the curtain upon the last act, and which has no name.

I don't know how it is to be written, still less how it is to be

acted, how it is to find an audience, nor how it can be called a

drama.

ERNEST. Nevertheless, it is a drama, if I could only give it proper

form, and that I can't do.

D. JULIAN. Do you wish to follow my advice?

ERNEST. Can you doubt it?—you, my friend, my benefactor, my second

father! Don Julian!

D. JULIAN. Come, come, Ernest, don't let us drop into a sentimental

drama on our own account instead of yours, which we have declared

impossible. I asked you if you would take my advice.

ERNEST. And I said yes.

D. JULIAN. Then leave aside your plays. Go to bed, rest yourself, and

come out shooting with me to-morrow. Kill a few partridges, and that

will be an excuse for your not killing one or two characters, and not

exposing yourself to the same fate at the hands of the public. After

all, you may thank me for it.

ERNEST. I'll do no such thing. I mean to write that play.

D. JULIAN. But, my poor fellow, you've conceived it in mortal sin.

ERNEST. I don't know, but it is conceived. I feel it stir in my brain.

It clamours for life, and I must give it to the world.

D. JULIAN. Can't you find another plot?

ERNEST. But this idea?

D. JULIAN. Send it to the devil.

ERNEST. Ah, Don Julian, you believe that an idea which has gripped the

mind can be effaced and destroyed at our pleasure. I wanted to think

out another play, but this accursed idea won't give it room, until it

itself has seen the light.

D. JULIAN. God grant you a happy delivery.

ERNEST. That's the question, as Hamlet says.

D. JULIAN. Couldn't you cast it into the literary foundling hospital of

anonymity?

[_In a low voice with an air of comical mystery._]

ERNEST. Don Julian, I am a man of conscience. Good or bad, my children

are legitimate. They bear my name.

D. JULIAN. [_Preparing to go._] I have nothing more to say. What must be

done will be done.

ERNEST. I wish it were so. Unfortunately, it is not done. But no matter;

if I don't do it, somebody else will.

D. JULIAN. Then to work, and good luck, and may nobody rob you of your

laurels.

SCENE III

_Ernest, Don Julian, and Teodora._

TEODORA. [_Outside._] Julian, Julian!

D. JULIAN. It's Teodora.

TEODORA. Are you there, Julian?

D. JULIAN. [_Going to the door._] Yes, I'm here. Come in.

TEODORA. [_Entering._] Good-evening, Ernest.

ERNEST. Good-evening, Teodora. Was the singing good?

TEODORA. As usual; and have you been working much?

ERNEST. As usual; nothing.

TEODORA. Then you'd have done better to come with us. They all asked

after you.

ERNEST. It seems that everybody is interested in me.

D. JULIAN. I should think so, since _everybody_ is to be the principal

personage of your play. You may imagine if they are anxious to be on

good terms with you.

TEODORA. A play?

D. JULIAN. Hush! 'Tis a mystery. Ask no questions. Neither title, nor

characters, nor action, nor catastrophe—the sublime! Good-night,

Ernest. Come, Teodora.

ERNEST. Adieu, Don Julian.

TEODORA. Till to-morrow.

ERNEST. Good-night.

TEODORA. [_To Don Julian._] How preoccupied Mercedes was!

D. JULIAN. And Severo was in a rage.

TEODORA. Why, I wonder.

D. JULIAN. How do I know? On the other hand, Pepito chattered enough for

both.

TEODORA. He always does, and nobody escapes his tongue.

D. JULIAN. He's a character for Ernest's play.

[_Exeunt Teodora, and Don Julian by right._]

SCENE IV

ERNEST. Let Don Julian say what he will, I won't abandon the

undertaking. That would be signal cowardice. Never retreat—always

forward. [_Rises and begins to walk about in an agitated way. Then

approaches the balcony._] Protect me, night. In thy blackness, rather

than in the azure clearness of day, are outlined the luminous shapes

of inspiration. Lift your roofs, you thousand houses of this great

town, as well for a poet in dire necessity as for the devil on two

sticks who so wantonly exposed you. Let me see the men and women enter

your drawing-rooms and boudoirs in search of the night's rest after

fevered pleasures abroad. Let my acute hearing catch the stray words

of all those who inquired for me of Don Julian and Teodora. As the

scattered rays of light, when gathered to a focus by diaphanous

crystal, strike flame, and darkness is forged by the crossed bars of

shadow; as mountains are made from grains of earth, and seas from

drops of water: so will I use your wasted words, your vague smiles,

your eager glances, and build my play of all those thousand

trivialities dispersed in _cafés_, at reunions, theatres, and

spectacles, and that float now in the air. Let the modest crystal of

my intelligence be the lens which will concentrate light and shadow,

from which will spring the dramatic conflagration and the tragic

explosion of the catastrophe. Already my play takes shape. It has even

a title now, for there, under the lamp-shade, I see the immortal work

of the immortal Florentine. It offers me in Italian what in good

Spanish it would be risky and futile audacity either to write on paper

or pronounce on the stage. Francesca and Paolo, assist me with the

story of your loves! [_Sits down and prepares to write._] The play ...

the play begins.... First page—there, 'tis no longer white. It has a

name. [_Writing._] _The Great Galeoto._ [_Writes feverishly._]

END OF PROLOGUE

ACT I

SCENE—_A drawing-room in Don Julian's house. At the back of stage a

large door, and beyond a passage separating it from the dining-room

door, which remains closed throughout the act. On the left a balcony,

and beyond it a door. On the right two doors. On the stage a table, an

arm-chair, handsome and luxurious mounting. Hour, towards sunset._

SCENE I

_Teodora and Don Julian. Teodora near the balcony;

Don Julian seated on the sofa, lost in thought._

TEODORA. What a lovely sunset! what clouds and light, and what a sky!

Suppose it were true, as the poets say, and our fathers believed, that

our fate is stamped upon the azure heaven! Were the mysterious secret

of human destiny traced by the stars upon the sapphire sphere, and

this splendid evening should hold the cipher of ours, what happiness

it must disclose! what a smiling future! What a life in our life, and

what radiance in our heaven! Is it not so, Julian? [_She approaches

Don Julian._] Ah, plunged in thought, I see! Come and look out. What,

no word for me?

D. JULIAN. [_Absently._] What is it?

TEODORA. [_Coming near._] You have not been listening to me!

D. JULIAN. You have my heart ever—who are its magnet and its centre. But

my mind is apt to be besieged by preoccupations, cares, business——

TEODORA. They are the plague of my life, since they rob me, if not of my

husband's affections, at least of some of his attention. But what is

the matter, Julian? [_Affectionately._] Something worries you. Is it

serious, that you are so solemn and so silent? If it should be

trouble, Julian, remember that I have a right to share it. My joys are

yours, and your sorrows are no less mine.

D. JULIAN. Sorrows! Troubles! Are you not happy? Do I not possess in you

the living embodiment of joy? With those cheeks so ruddy in the glow

of health, and those dear eyes, clear like your soul and resplendent

as the sky, and I the owner of all you, could pain, or shadow, or

grief teach me I am other than the happiest man alive?

TEODORA. It is a business annoyance, perhaps?

D. JULIAN. Money never yet forced sleep or appetite to forsake me. I

have never felt aversion, much less contempt for it, so it follows

that the article has flowed easily into my coffers. I was rich, I am

rich; and until Don Julian of Garagarga dies of old age, please God

and his own good fortune, he will remain, if not the wealthiest,

certainly the surest, banker of Madrid, Cadiz, and Oporto.

TEODORA. Then what is your preoccupation?

D. JULIAN. I was thinking—'tis a good thought, too.

TEODORA. Naturally, since 'tis yours.

D. JULIAN. Flatterer! you would spoil me.

TEODORA. But I am still unenlightened.

D. JULIAN. There is an important matter I want to achieve.

TEODORA. Connected with the new works?

D. JULIAN. No; it has nothing to do with stone or iron.

TEODORA. What, then?

D. JULIAN. It is a question of kindness—a sacred debt of old date.

TEODORA. [_Gleefully._] Oh, I can guess now.

D. JULIAN. So!

TEODORA. You mean Ernest.

D. JULIAN. You are right.

TEODORA. Yes, yes, you must. Poor lad! he's so good and noble and

generous.

D. JULIAN. Quite his father's son—the model of a loyal hidalgo.

TEODORA. And then so clever! Only twenty-six, and a prodigy! what

doesn't he know?

D. JULIAN. Know! I should think he _did_ know. That's nothing—rather,

that's the worst of it. While he is wandering in the sphere of sublime

thought, I fear he's not likely to learn much of a world so deceptive

and prosaic as ours, which takes no interest in the subtleties of the

mind until three centuries after genius has been buried.

TEODORA. But with you for a guide, Julian—you don't intend to abandon

him yet a while, surely?

D. JULIAN. God forbid. I should be black-hearted indeed if I would so

readily forget all I owe his father. Don Juan of Acedo risked for my

family name and wealth, ay, almost his life. Should this lad need

mine, he might ask it, and welcome. 'Twould be but just payment of the

debt my name represents.

TEODORA. Well said, Julian. It is like you.

D. JULIAN. You remember, about a year ago, I heard my good friend was

dead, and his son was left badly off. I lost no time, caught the train

to Gerona, nearly used force, and carried the boy back here. When he

stood in the middle of this room I said to him: 'You are master here;

you may command me and mine. Since I owe your father everything, you

must regard me in the light of his representative. If I fall short, my

desire is to come as near as possible to him. As for the amount of

affection I have to dispose of—we'll see if I don't outrace him

there.'

TEODORA. I remember it well. The soft-hearted fellow burst out crying,

and clung to you like a child.

D. JULIAN. He's but a child, as you say. That's why we must think and

plan for him. And 'twas of that I was so seriously thinking a moment

ago. I was meditating a half-formed project, while you, dear, wanted

me to contemplate a panorama of radiant cloud and scarlet sun that

cannot compare with the sun that shines in my own heaven.

TEODORA. I cannot divine your idea. What is it you project doing for

Ernest?

D. JULIAN. Those are my words.

TEODORA. But is there something yet undone that you expect to discover?

He has lived with us for the past year like one of ourselves. Were he

your son, or a brother of mine, could you show him more tenderness, I

more affection?

D. JULIAN. It is much, but not enough.

TEODORA. Not enough! I fancy,——

D. JULIAN. You are thinking of the present, and I of the future.

TEODORA. Oh! the future! That is easily settled. See, he lives here with

us as long as he likes, for years. It is his home. Then when the just

and natural law prompts him to fall in love and desire another, we

will marry him. You will nobly share your wealth with him, and we will

lead them from the altar to their own house,—_he_ and _she_! The

proverb, you know, says wisely, 'for each wedded pair a house.' He

will live just a little away from us, but that will be no reason for

our forgetting him, or loving him less. I see it all distinctly. They

are happy, and we even happier. They have children, of course, and we

perhaps more—well, at least, one little girl, who will fall in love

with Ernest's son, and to whom we will marry her by and by.

[_Spoken playfully, with volubility, grace, blushes, and

lively gesture, according to the actress's talents._]

D. JULIAN. But where in heaven's name are you going to stop?

[_Laughing._]

TEODORA. You spoke of his future, Julian, and I've sketched it. If not

this one, I will neither approve nor accept it.

D. JULIAN. How like you, Teodora! but——

TEODORA. Ah, there is a but already.

D. JULIAN. Listen, Teodora. It is but a debt we owe to look after the

poor fellow as if he were a relative, and obligation runs with the

exactions of our affection. So much for himself; so much for his

father's son. But every human action is complex, has two points of

view, and every medal has its reverse. Which means, Teodora, that you

must understand it is a very different matter to give and receive

favours; and that in the end Ernest might feel my protection a

humiliation. He's a high-spirited, fine lad, a trifle haughty perhaps,

and it is imperative there should be an end to his present position.

We may, if we can, do more for him, but we must seem to do less.

TEODORA. How so?

D. JULIAN. We'll see—but here he comes——[_Looks down the stage._]

TEODORA. Hush!

SCENE II

_Don Julian, Teodora, and Ernest behind._

D. JULIAN. Welcome!

ERNEST. Don Julian!—and Teodora! [_Salutes absently. Sits down near the

table in pensive silence._]

DON JULIAN. [_Approaching him._] What's the matter?

ERNEST. Nothing.

D. JULIAN. You look as if something ailed you—your preoccupation reveals

it. No trouble, I hope?

ERNEST. Nonsense.

D. JULIAN. Nor disappointment?

ERNEST. None whatever.

D. JULIAN. I don't annoy you?

ERNEST. You! good heavens! [_Rises and comes toward him effusively._]

You speak out of the right of friendship and affection, and you read

me through and through. Yes, sir; there is indeed something the

matter. I will tell you, if you, and you also, Teodora, out of your

pity, will hold me excused. I am an ungrateful fool, a mere boy, in

truth, deserving neither of your kindness nor of your affection.

Possessing such a father and such a sister, I ought to be happy, with

no care for the morrow. But it is not so. I blush to explain it,—can't

you understand?—Yes, yes, you must see how false my position is. I

live here on alms. [_With energy._]

TEODORA. Such a word——

ERNEST. Teodora!

TEODORA. Affronts us.

ERNEST. I expressed myself ill—but it is so.

D. JULIAN. I say it is not so. If any one in this house lives upon alms,

and those no slight ones, it is I and not you.

ERNEST. I am acquainted, sir, with the story of two loyal friends, and

of some money matters long forgotten. It does honour to my father and

to his hidalgic race. But I am shamed in profiting by it. I am young,

Don Julian, and although I may not be worth much, there ought still to

be some way for me to earn my bread. It may be pride or folly, I

cannot say. But I remember what my father used to say: 'What you can

do yourself, never ask another to do. What you can earn, never owe to

any one else.'

D. JULIAN. So that my services humiliate and degrade you. You count your

friends importunate creditors.

TEODORA. Reason may be on your side, Ernest, and in knowledge you are

not deficient, but, believe me, in this case the heart alone speaks

with wisdom.

D. JULIAN. Your father did not find me so ungenerous or so proud.

TEODORA. Ah, friendship was then a very different thing.

ERNEST. Teodora!

TEODORA. [_To Don Julian._] What a noble anxiety displays

ERNEST. I know I seem ungrateful—I feel it—and an idiot to boot. Forgive

me, Don Julian.

D. JULIAN. His head is a forge.

TEODORA. [_Also apart to Don Julian._] He doesn't live in this world.

D. JULIAN. Just so. He's full of depth and learning, and lets himself be

drowned in a pool of water.

ERNEST. [_Meditatively._] True, I know little of life, and am not well

fitted to make my way through it But I divine it, and shudder, I know

not why. Shall I founder on the world's pool as upon the high sea? I

may not deny that it terrifies me far more than the deep ocean. The

sea only reaches the limit set by the loose sand: over all space

travel the emanations of the pool. A strong man's arms can struggle

with the waves of the sea, but no one can struggle against subtle

miasma. But if I fall, I must not feel the humiliation of defeat. I

wish and pray that at the last moment I may see the approach of the

sea that will bear me away at its will; see the sword that is to

pierce me, the rock against which I am to be crushed. I must measure

my adversary's strength, and despise it falling, despise it dying,

instead of tamely breathing the venom scattered through the ambient

air.

D. JULIAN. [_To Teodora._] Didn't I tell you he was going out of his

mind?

TEODORA. But, Ernest, where are you wandering?

D. JULIAN. Yes. What has all this to do with the matter?

ERNEST. Sir, I have come to the conclusion that others, seeing me housed

and fed here, are saying of me what I long have thought. They see me

constantly driving out with you, in the morning walking with Teodora

or Mercedes, in your opera-box, hunting on your lands, and daily

occupying the same place at your table. Though you would like to think

otherwise, in one way or another the gossip runs: Who is he? Is he a

relation? Not so. The secretary? Still less. A partner? If a partner,

it may be accepted he brings little or nothing to the general fund. So

they chatter.

D. JULIAN. By no means. You are raving.

ERNEST. I beg to contradict you.

D. JULIAN. Then give me a name.

ERNEST. Sir?——

D. JULIAN. One will do.

ERNEST. There is one at hand—upstairs.

D. JULIAN. Name him.

ERNEST. Don Severo.

D. JULIAN. My brother?

ERNEST. Exactly, your brother? Will that suffice? or shall we add his

respected wife, Doña Mercedes? and Pepito, their son? What have you to

say then?

D. JULIAN. That Severo is a fool, Mercedes an idle chatterer, and the

lad a puppy.

ERNEST. They only repeat what they hear.

D. JULIAN. It is not true. This is false reasoning. Between gentlemen,

when the intention is honourable, what can the opinion of the world

really matter? The meaner it is, the loftier our disdain of it.

ERNEST. 'Tis nobly said, and is what all well-bred men feel. But I have

been taught that gossip, whether inspired by malice or not, which is

according to each one's natural tendency, begins in a lie and

generally ends in truth. Does gossip, as it grows, disclose the hidden

sin? Is it a reflex of the past, or does it invent evil and give it

existence? Does it set its accursed seal upon an existent fault, or

merely breed that which was yet not, and furnish the occasion for

wrong? Should we call the slanderer infamous or severe? the accomplice

or the divulger? the public avenger or the tempter? Does he arrest or

precipitate our fall? wound through taste or duty? and when he

condemns, is it from justice or from spite? Perhaps both, Don Julian.

Who can say? though time, occasion, and facts may show.

D. JULIAN. See here, Ernest, I don't understand an iota of all this

philosophising. I presume 'tis on such nonsense you waste your

intelligence. But I don't want you to be vexed or worried. It's

true—you really wish for austere independence, to stand alone at a

post of honour?

ERNEST. Don Julian!

D. JULIAN. Answer me.

ERNEST. [_Joyously_]. Yes.

D. JULIAN. Then count it gained. At this very moment I have no

secretary. I am expecting one from London. But nobody would suit me

better than a certain young fool, who is enamoured of poverty.

[_Speaks in pleasant reproach._] His work and salary will, of course,

be settled as any one else's, though he be a son to one who cherishes

him as such.

ERNEST. Don Julian!

D. JULIAN. [_Affecting comical severity._] Remember, I am an exacting

business man, and I have not the habit of giving my money away for

nothing. I intend to get as much as possible out of you, and work you

hard. In my house the bread of just labour alone is consumed. By the

clock, ten hours, starting at daybreak, and when I choose to be

severe, you will see that Severo himself is no match for me. So,

before the world you pose as the victim of my selfishness ... but in

private, dear boy, ever the same, the centre of my dearest affections.

[_Unable to maintain former tone, Don Julian breaks off, and holds his

hand out to Ernest._]

ERNEST. [_Deeply moved._] Don Julian!

D. JULIAN. You accept, then?

ERNEST. I am yours to command.

TEODORA. [_To Don Julian._] At last you have tamed the savage.

ERNEST. [_To Don Julian._] Anything for your sake.

D. JULIAN. So would I have you always, Ernest. And now I have to write

to my London correspondent, and thank him, and while recognising the

extraordinary merit of his Englishman, whom he extols to the skies,

regret that I have already engaged a young man. [_Walks toward the

first door on the right hand._] This is how we stand for the present;

but in the future—it will be as partners. [_Returns with an air of

mystery._]

TEODORA. Stop, Julian, I beg of you. Can't you see that he will take

alarm? [_Don Julian goes out on the right, and laughs to himself,

looking back at Ernest._]

SCENE III

_Teodora and Ernest. Towards the end of the last scene twilight has

fallen, so that at this moment the room is in deep shadow._

ERNEST. I am dazed by so much kindness. How can I ever repay it? [_He

sits down on the sofa, displaying great emotion. Teodora walks over

and stands beside him_.]

TEODORA. By ejecting the spirit of pride and distrust; by being sensible

and believing that we truly love you, that we will never change; and

by putting full faith in all Julian's promises. His word is sacred,

Ernest, and in him you will always have a father, in me a sister.

SCENE IV

_Teodora, Ernest, Doña Mercedes, and Don Severo. The latter remain

standing behind as they enter. The room is quite dark, save for a

glimmer of light shed from the balcony, whither Ernest and Teodora

have moved._

ERNEST. How good you are!

TEODORA. And you, what a boy! After to-day I hope you have done with

sadness—eh?

ERNEST. Quite.

MERCEDES. [_Outside, speaking low._] How dark it is!

SEVERO. [_In same tone._] Come away, Mercedes.

MERCEDES. [_Crossing the threshold._] There is nobody here.

SEVERO. [_Detaining her._] Yes, there is. [_Both stand a while

peering._]

ERNEST. Teodora, my whole life, a thousand lives would still not be

enough to offer you in return for your kindness. Don't judge me by my

morose temper. I cannot lend a showy front to my affections, but,

believe me, I do know how to love—and hate as well. My heart can beat

to bursting under the lash of either sentiment.

MERCEDES. [_To Severo._] What are they saying?

SEVERO. Something odd, but I hear imperfectly. [_Teodora and Ernest go

out on the balcony, speaking low._]

MERCEDES. 'Tis Ernest.

SEVERO. And she—I suppose—is——

MERCEDES. Teodora.

SEVERO. Their eternal tricks—always together. I can stand no more of

this. And their words? I mustn't put it off any longer——

MERCEDES. True, Severo. Come away. It is certainly your duty, since

everybody is talking.

SEVERO. Yes, I must open Julian's eyes—to-day, at once.

MERCEDES. The fellow has impudence enough, and to spare.

SEVERO. By all that's holy—so has she.

MERCEDES. Poor girl! She's but a child. Leave her to me.

TEODORA. Another house? Surely no. You wouldn't leave us? What an idea!

Julian would never consent.

SEVERO. [_To Doña Mercedes._] I should think not indeed, neither would

I. [_Aloud._] Ah, Teodora, you didn't see me? This is how you receive

your guests.

TEODORA. [_Coming from the balcony._] Don Severo! I am delighted.

MERCEDES. Is there no dinner this evening? It's near the hour.

TEODORA. Mercedes too!

MERCEDES. Yes, Teodora.

SEVERO. [_Aside._] She is a capital actress. What a creature!

TEODORA. I must ring for lights. [_Touches the bell on the table._]

SEVERO. Quite so. Every one likes plenty of light.

SERVANT. Madam?

TEODORA. Bring the lamps, Genaro. [_Exit servant._]

SEVERO. He who follows the narrow path of loyalty and duty, and is

always that which he appears to be, need never fear the light, nor

blush in its glare.

[_The servant enters with lamps, the stage is brilliantly

illuminated. After a pause._]

TEODORA. [_Laughing naturally._] So I should think, and such, I imagine,

is the general opinion. [_Looks at Mercedes._]

MERCEDES. I suppose so.

SEVERO. Hulloa, Don Ernest! what were you doing out there? Were you with

Teodora when we came in! [_Speaks with marked intention._]

ERNEST. [_Coldly._] I was here as you see.

SEVERO. The deuce you were! It is rather dark to see. [_Approaches him

with outstretched hand, looking fixedly at him. Teodora and Mercedes

converse apart. Aside._] His face is flushed, and he appears to have

been crying. In this world only children and lovers weep. [_Aloud._]

And Julian?

TEODORA. He went away to write a letter.

ERNEST. [_Aside._] Though I have patience to spare, this man tries me

hard.

SEVERO. [_To Teodora._] I am going to see him. There is still time

before dinner?

TEODORA. Plenty.

SEVERO. Good. Then to work. [_Aside, rubbing his hands, and looking back

at Ernest and Teodora. Aloud._] Goodbye.

TEODORA. Goodbye.

SEVERO. [_Rancorously, from the door._] My faith!

SCENE V

_Teodora, Doña Mercedes, and Ernest. The ladies occupy the sofa, and

Ernest stands near them._

MERCEDES. [_To Ernest._] We did not see you to-day.

ERNEST. No, madam.

MERCEDES. Nor Pepito?

ERNEST. No.

MERCEDES. He is upstairs alone.

ERNEST. [_Aside._] Let him stop there.

MERCEDES. [_Gravely and mysteriously to Teodora._] I wish he would go. I

want to speak to you.

TEODORA. Indeed?

MERCEDES. [_In same tone._] Yes, it is something very serious.

TEODORA. Well, begin!

MERCEDES. Why doesn't he go?

TEODORA. [_In a low voice._] I don't understand you.

MERCEDES. Courage! [_Takes her hand and clasps it affectionately.

Teodora looks at her in sombre question._] Send him about his

business.

TEODORA. If you insist. Ernest, will you do me a favour?

ERNEST. Gladly—with a thousand wills.

MERCEDES. [_Aside._] One were still too many.

TEODORA. Then go upstairs—to Pepito——But it might bore you to carry a

message.

ERNEST. By no means.

MERCEDES. [_Aside._] In what a sweet, soft voice he speaks to her!

TEODORA. Tell him—ask him if he has renewed our subscription at the

Opera as I told him. He knows about it.

ERNEST. With pleasure—this very moment.

TEODORA. Thanks, Ernest, I am sorry——

ERNEST. Nonsense. [_Exit._]

TEODORA. Adieu!

SCENE VI

_Teodora and Doña Mercedes._

TEODORA. Something serious? You alarm me, Mercedes. Such mystery! What

can it mean?

MERCEDES. It is indeed very serious.

TEODORA. Concerning whom?

MERCEDES. All of you.

TEODORA. All of us?

MERCEDES. Julian, Ernest, and you.

TEODORA. All three?

MERCEDES. Yes, all three. [_Short pause. Both women stare at each

other._]

TEODORA. Then make haste.

MERCEDES. [_Aside._] I should like to——but, no; I must go gently in this

unsavoury affair. [_Aloud._] Listen, Teodora. My husband is, after

all, your husband's brother, and in life and death our fortunes are

one. So that we owe one another in all things protection, help, and

advice,—is it not so? To-day it may be I who offer assistance, and

to-morrow, should I need it, I unblushingly claim it of you.

TEODORA. You may count upon it, Mercedes. But come to the end of the

matter now.

MERCEDES. Up to to-day, Teodora, I shrank from this step, but Severo

urges me. 'It can't go on,' he insists. 'My brother's honour and my

own self-esteem forbid me to witness that which fills me with shame

and sorrow. On all sides am I assailed with innuendoes, with the

smiles, the covert glances and the reproaches of my friends. There

must be an end to this low gossip about us.'

TEODORA. Continue, pray.

MERCEDES. Then heed me. [_They exchange a prolonged gaze._]

TEODORA. Tell me, what is the gossip?

MERCEDES. The murmuring of the river tells us that its waters are

swollen.

TEODORA. I understand nothing of your river and its swollen waters, but

do not drive me wild.

MERCEDES. [_Aside._] Poor child! My heart grieves for her. [_Aloud._] So

you do not understand me?

TEODORA. I? not in the least.

MERCEDES. [_Aside._] How stupid she is! [_Aloud, energetically._] You

make a laughing-stock of him.

TEODORA. Of whom?

MERCEDES. Why, of your husband, of course.

TEODORA. [_Impetuously, rising._] Julian! what a falsehood! What wretch

could say so? Julian would strike him!

MERCEDES. [_Endeavouring to soothe her and make her sit down._] He would

need a good many hands, then; for, if report speak truly, he would

have to strike the entire town.

TEODORA. But what does it all mean? What is the mystery, and what is

this talk of the town?

MERCEDES. So you're sorry?

TEODORA. I am sorry. But what is it?

MERCEDES. You see, Teodora, you are quite a child. At your age one is so

often thoughtless and light, and then such bitter tears are afterwards

shed. You still don't understand me?

TEODORA. No, what has such a case to do with me?

MERCEDES. It is the story of a scoundrel and the story of a lady——

TEODORA. [_Eagerly._] Whose name——?

MERCEDES. Her name——

TEODORA. Oh, what does it matter?

[_Teodora moves away from Mercedes, who shifts her seat on the

sofa to follow her. The double movement of repugnance and

aloofness on Teodora's part, and of insistence and protection

on Mercedes', is very marked._]

MERCEDES. The man is a shabby-hearted betrayer, who, for one hour of

pleasure, would thrust upon the woman a life of sorrow: the husband's

dishonour, the ruin of a family, and she left shamed and condemned to

social penitence in the world's disdain, and to keener punishment

still at the whip of her own conscience.

[_Here Teodora, avoiding Mercedes, reaches the edge of the sofa,

bows her head and covers her face with both hands. At last she

understands._]

MERCEDES. [_Aside._] Poor little thing! She touches me. [_Aloud._] This

man is not worthy of you, Teodora.

TEODORA. But, madam, what is the drift of all this blind emotion? Do not

imagine that my eyes are dimmed with fear or horror or tears. They

burn with the flame of anger. To whom can such words be addressed?

What man do you mean? Is it, perchance——?

MERCEDES. Ernest.

TEODORA. Ah! [_Pause._] And the woman I? Not so? [_Mercedes nods and

Teodora rises again._] Then listen to me, though I may offend you. I

know not who is the viler, the inventor of this tale or you who repeat

it. Shame upon the meanness that formed the idea, and shame upon the

villainy that spreads it! It is so abominable, so fatal, that I almost

feel myself criminal because I cannot instantly reject the thought and

forget it. Heavens! could I suppose or credit such baseness? Because

of his misfortunes I loved him. He was like a brother to me, and

Julian was his providence. And he so noble and thorough a gentleman!

[_Stands staring at Mercedes, then turns away her face. Aside._] How

she inspects me! I scarcely like to say a good word for him to her. My

God! I am compelled already to act a part.

MERCEDES. Be calm, child.

TEODORA. [_Raising her voice._] Oh, what anguish! I feel cold and

inconsolable. Stained in this way by public opinion! Oh, my dearest

mother, and you, Julian, my heart's beloved. [_She falls sobbing into

a chair on the left, and Mercedes strives to console her._]

MERCEDES. I did not imagine—forgive me—don't cry. There, I didn't really

believe it was serious. I knew your past exonerated you. But as the

case stands, you must admit that out of every hundred a hundred would

accuse you and Julian of excessive rashness, or say you had led the

world to conclude the worst. You a girl of twenty, Julian a man of

forty, and Ernest between you, with his head full of romantic

thoughts. On the one hand, a husband given up to business, on the

other a youth to dreams, every day bringing its opportunity, and you

there, unoccupied, in the flush of romance. It was wrong for people to

conclude the worst because they saw you walking with him, and saw him

so often at the theatre with you. But, Teodora, in reason and justice

I think that, if the world was bent on seeing evil, you furnished the

occasion. Permit me to point out to you that the fault which society

most fiercely chastises, pursues most relentlessly and cruelly, and in

every varied imaginable way, both in man and woman is—don't frown so,

Teodora—is _temerity_.

TEODORA. [_Turning to Mercedes without having heard her._] And you say

that Julian——

MERCEDES. Is the laughing-stock of the town, and you——

TEODORA. Oh, I! That's no matter. But Julian!—Oh, oh, so good, so

chivalrous! If he only knew——

MERCEDES. He will know, for at this very moment Severo is telling him.

TEODORA. What!

JULIAN. [_Inside._] That will do.

TEODORA. Oh, goodness!

JULIAN. Let me alone.

TEODORA. Come away, quickly.

MERCEDES. [_Rushing with Teodora towards first door on the right._] Yes,

yes, quickly. What folly! [_Teodora and Mercedes go to the right._]

TEODORA. [_Stopping suddenly._] But wherefore, since I am not guilty?

Not only does miserable calumny stain us, but it degrades us. It is so

steeped in evil, that, against all evidence, its very breath takes the

bloom off our consciences. Why should an idle terror cast its mean

influence over me? [_At this moment Don Julian appears on the

threshold of the first door on the right hand side, and behind him

stands Don Severo._]

TEODORA. Julian!

D. JULIAN. Teodora! [_She runs over to him, and he folds her in a

passionate embrace._] Here in my arms, dearest. It is the home of your

honour.

SCENE VII

_Teodora, Doña Mercedes, Don Julian, and Don Severo. Don Julian and Doña

Mercedes form the centre group._

D. JULIAN. Let it pass for this once, but, please God! there's an end of

it. Whoever in future shall stain this face with tears [_pointing to

Teodora_], I swear, and mean it, will never again cross the threshold

of my house—though he should be my own brother. [_Pause. Don Julian

soothes and comforts Teodora._]

D. SEVERO. I only mentioned common report.

D. JULIAN. Infamous!

D. SEVERO. It may be so.

D. JULIAN. It is.

D. SEVERO. Well, let me tell you what every one says.

D. JULIAN. Filth! abominable lies.

D. SEVERO. Then repeating them——

D. JULIAN. 'Tis not the way to put an end to them.

[_Pause._]

D. SEVERO. You are wrong.

D. JULIAN. Right—more than right. A fine thing it would be if I let you

carry the mire of the street into my drawing-room!

D. SEVERO. But I will do so.

D. JULIAN. You shall not.

D. SEVERO. You bear my name.

D. JULIAN. Enough.

D. SEVERO. And your honour——

D. JULIAN. Remember that you are in my wife's presence.

[_Pause._]

D. SEVERO. [_In a low voice to Don Julian._] If our father saw you——

D. JULIAN. What do you mean, Severo?

MERCEDES. Hush! Here is Ernest.

TEODORA. [_Aside._] How dreadful! If he should know—— [_Teodora turns

away her face, and holds her head bent. Don Julian looks at her

questioningly._]

SCENE VIII

_Teodora, Doña Mercedes, Don Julian, Don Severo, Ernest and Pepito

grouped from left to right. On entering, Pepito stands on Don Julian's

side and Ernest walks over to Teodora._

ERNEST. [_Looking at Don Julian and Teodora. Aside._] He and she! It is

no illusion. Can it be what I feared? what that fool told me.

[_Referring to Pepito, who at that moment enters behind._] It was not

his invention.

PEPITO. [_Staring strangely about._] My salutations to all, and good

appetite—as it is dinner-time. Here are the tickets, Teodora. Don

Julian——

TEODORA. Thanks, Pepito. [_Accepts them mechanically._]

ERNEST. [_To Don Julian in a low voice._] What's the matter with

Teodora?

D. JULIAN. Nothing.

ERNEST. [_In same tone._] She is pale, and has been crying.

D. JULIAN. [_Angrily._] Don't busy yourself about my wife. [_Pause. Don

Julian and Ernest exchange glances._]

ERNEST. [_Aside._] The wretches! They've completed their work.

PEPITO. [_In a low voice to his mother, pointing to Ernest._] He ought

to have a strait-jacket. I quizzed him about Teodora. Poof! 'Pon my

word, I thought he'd kill me.

ERNEST. [_Aloud, with resolution and sadness._] Don Julian, I have

thought over your generous offer, and much as I've already abused your

kindness, it goes sorely against me to refuse it now. But, sir, I feel

that I ought to reject this post you offer me.

D. JULIAN. Why?

ERNEST. Because I am so fashioned,—a poet and a dreamer. My father, sir,

trained me for no career. I want to travel; I am restless and liable

to revolt. I am not capable of settling down like another. Like a new

Columbus, I am bitten by the spirit of adventure. But we will appeal

to Don Severo. He will decide if I am right.

D. SEVERO. You speak like the book of wisdom and like a man of sense. I

have been thinking as you do for a long while.

D. JULIAN. Since when have you felt this itch for new worlds and travel?

When did you make up your mind to leave us? And the means?—where are

they?

D. SEVERO. He wants to go away—to some place more to his taste than

here. To be just, Julian, the rest is your affair. Give him as much as

he wants, too, for this is no time for economy.

ERNEST. [_To Don Severo._] I don't traffic with dishonour, nor receive

alms. [_Pause._] Well, it must be so; and as our parting would be a

sad one—for in this life, who knows? I may never come back, and may

not see them again—it is better that we should shake hands now, here,

Don Julian, and have it over. Thus we snap the tie, and you forgive my

selfishness. [_Deeply moved._]

D. SEVERO. [_Aside._] How they stare at one another!

TEODORA. [_Aside._] What a noble fellow!

ERNEST. [_To Don Julian._] Why do you withhold your hand? It is our last

adieu, Don Julian. [_Goes toward him with outstretched hands. Don

Julian embraces him._]

D. JULIAN. No, lad. The question well considered, this is neither the

first nor the last. It is the cordial embrace of two honourable men.

You must not mention your mad project again.

D. SEVERO. Then he is not going away?

D. JULIAN. Never. I have not the habit of changing my mind or the plans

I have matured because of a boy's caprice or a madman's folly. And I

have still less intention of weakly subjecting my actions to the

town's idle gossip.

D. SEVERO. Julian!

D. JULIAN. Enough. Dinner is served.

ERNEST. Father, I cannot——

D. JULIAN. But what if I believe you can? Or does my authority begin to

bore you?

ERNEST. I beg you——

D. JULIAN. Come, dinner is ready. Give your arm to Teodora, and take her

in.

ERNEST. [_Looking at her, but holding back._] To Teodora!

TEODORA. [_With a similar emotion._] Ernest!

D. JULIAN. Yes, as usual. [_There is a movement of uncertainty on both

sides; finally Ernest approaches and Teodora takes his arm, but

neither dares to look at the other, and both are abrupt and violently

agitated._]

D. JULIAN. [_To Pepito._] And you! The deuce, why don't you offer your

arm to your mother? My good brother Severo will take mine. So, quite a

family party, and now let pleasure flow with the wine in our glasses.

So there are gossips about? Well, let them chatter and scream. A

farthing for all they can say. I shouldn't object to a glass house,

that they might have the pleasure of staring in at Teodora and Ernest

together, and learn how little I care for their spite and their

calumnies. Each man to his fancy.

[_Enter servant in black suit and white tie._]

SERVANT. Dinner is served.

[_The dining-room door opens and displays a well-appointed

table._]

D. JULIAN. Let us look after our life, since it will be the affair of

others to look after our death. Come. [_Invites the others to pass._]

TEODORA. Mercedes.

MERCEDES. Teodora.

TEODORA. I pray you, Mercedes.

[_Doña Mercedes passes in with Pepito and takes her place at the

table. Ernest and Teodora stand plunged in thought, Ernest looking

anxiously at her._]

D. JULIAN. [_Aside._] He is looking at her, and there are tears in her

eyes. [_Teodora, walking unsteadily and struggling with emotion,

slowly follows the others inside._]

D. JULIAN. [_To Severo._] Are they talking together?

D. SEVERO. I don't know, but I think it very probable.

D. JULIAN. Why are they looking back at us? Both! Did you notice? I

wonder why.

D. SEVERO. You see, you are growing reasonable at last!

D. JULIAN. No, I've caught your madness. Ah, how sure a thing is

calumny! It pierces straight to the heart.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

ACT II

_Scene represents a small room almost poorly furnished. Door at the end,

on the right another door, and on the left a balcony. A book-case, a

table, an arm-chair. On the table Don Julian's portrait in a frame,

beside it an empty frame; both small and alike. On the table an

unlighted lamp, the 'Divina Commedia,' open at the Francesca episode,

and close to it a morsel of burnt paper. Papers scattered about, and

the MS. of a play. A few chairs. Time, day._

SCENE I

_Enter Don Julian. Don Severo and servant below._

D. SEVERO. Don Ernest is out?

SERVANT. Yes, sir. He went out early.

D. SEVERO. No matter. We'll wait. I suppose he will be in sooner or

later.

SERVANT. I should think so. Nobody could be more punctual than he.

D. SEVERO. That will do.

SERVANT. Certainly, sir. If you want anything, you'll find me

downstairs. [_Exit servant._]

SCENE II

_Don Julian and Don Severo._

D. SEVERO. [_Looking round._] How modest!

D. JULIAN. Poor is a better word.

D. SEVERO. What a lodging! [_Opens the door and peeps in._] An alcove,

this study, and an outer room—and that's all.

D. JULIAN. And thereby hangs the devil's own tale of human ingratitude,

of bastard sentiment, of miserable passions, and of blackguard

calumny. And whether you tell it quickly or at length, there's never

an end to it.

D. SEVERO. It is the work of chance.

D. JULIAN. Not so, my dear fellow. It was the work of—well, I know whom.

D. SEVERO. Meaning me?

D. JULIAN. Yes, you as well. And before you the empty-pated idlers whom

it behoved to busy themselves shamelessly about my honour and my

wife's. And I, coward, mean, and jealous, I let the poor fellow go,

despite my evidence of his upright nature. I responded to his nobler

conduct by black ingratitude. Yes, ingratitude. You see my

ostentatious wealth, the luxury of my surroundings and equipages, and

the credit of my firm. Well, do you know where all that comes from?

D. SEVERO. I have quite forgotten.

D. JULIAN. Justly said,—forgotten! Such is the natural reward of every

generous action, of every unusual impulse that prompts one man to

help another quietly, without a flourish of trumpet or

self-advertisement—just for friendship's or for honesty's sake.

D. SEVERO. You are unjust to yourself. To such an excess have you pushed

gratitude, that you have almost sacrificed honour and fortune to it.

What more could be expected—even of a saint? There's a limit to all

things, good and evil. He is proud and obstinate, and, however much

you may oppose him, 'tis none the less a fact that he's his own

master. If he chooses to leave your palace in a fit of despair, for

this shanty—'tis his right. I admit, my dear boy, that it's very

sad—but then, who could have prevented it?

D. JULIAN. The world in general, if it would mind its own business

instead of tearing and rending reputations by the movement of its

tongue and the sign of its hand. What did it matter to the public if

we, fulfilling a sacred duty, treated Ernest, I as a son, and Teodora

as a brother? Is it reason enough to assume the worst, and trumpet

scandal because a fine lad sits at my table, walks out with my wife,

and has his seat in my opera-box? Is by chance impure love the sole

supreme bond between man and woman in this world of clay? Is there no

friendship, gratitude, sympathy, esteem, that youth and beauty should

only meet in the mire? And even supposing that the conclusion of the

fools was the right one, is it their business to avenge me? I have my

own eyes to look after my own affairs, and to avenge my wrongs have I

not courage, steel, and my own right hand?

D. SEVERO. Well, accepting that outsiders were wrong to talk, did you

expect me, who am of your blood and bear your name, to hold my tongue?

D. JULIAN. By heavens, no! But you should have been more careful. You

might have told me alone of this sorry business, and not have set

flame to a conflagration under my very roof.

D. SEVERO. I erred through excess of affection, I admit. But while I

confess that the world and I have done the mischief—it by inventing

the situation, and I by weakly crediting, and by giving voice to the

shabby innuendoes—you, Julian [_approaches him and speaks with tender

interest_], have nothing to reproach yourself with. You have the

consolation of having acted throughout as a gentleman.

D JULIAN. I cannot so easily console myself, while my heart gives

shelter to that same story which my lips and my intelligence reject. I

indignantly turn away from the world's calumny, and to myself I say:

'What if it should be no lie: if perchance the world should be right?'

So I stand in strife between two impulses, sometimes judge, sometimes

accomplice. This inward battle wears me out, Severo. Doubt increases

and expands, and my heart groans, while before my bloodshot vision

stretches a reddened field.

D. SEVERO. Delirium!

D. JULIAN. No, 'tis not raving. You see, I bare myself to you as a

brother. Think you Ernest would have left my house if I had firmly

stood in his way and opposed his crossing the threshold? If so, why

does a traitorous voice keep muttering in my disturbed consciousness:

‘’twere wise to leave the door open to his exit, and lock it well

afterwards, for the confiding man is but a poor guardian of honour’s

fortress.’ In my heart I wish what my lips deny. 'Come back, Ernest,'

aloud, and to myself 'do not come back,' and while I show him a frank

front, I am a hypocrite and a coward, watchful and worn with mistrust.

No, Severo, this is not to act like an honest man. [_He drops into the

arm-chair beside the table in deep dejection._]

D. SEVERO. It is how any husband would act who had a beautiful young

wife to look after, especially one with a romantic temperament.

D. JULIAN. Don't speak so of Teodora. She is a mirror that our breath

tarnishes by any imprudent effort to bring it to our level. It gave

back the sun's pure light before the million vipers of the earth

gathered to stare at it. To-day they crawl within the glass in its

divine frame, but they are insubstantial shadows. My hand can wave

them away, and once more you will see the clear blue of heaven.

D. SEVERO. All the better.

D. JULIAN. No, not so.

D. SEVERO. Then what the deuce do you want?

D. JULIAN. Oh, so much. I told you that this inward struggle of which I

spoke is changing me to another man. Now my wife finds me always sad,

always distant. I am not the man I was, and no effort will ever make

me so again. Seeing me so changed, she must ask, 'Where is Julian?

this is not my dear husband; what have I done to forfeit his

confidence, and what shabby feeling causes this aloofness?' a shadow

lies between us, ever deepening, and slowly, step by step, we move

more apart. None of the old dear confidence, none of the old

delightful talks; smiles frozen, tones embittered, in me through

unjust resentment, in her through tearful grief,—I wounded in my love,

and she, by my hand, wounded in her woman's dignity. There's how we

stand.

D. SEVERO. Then you stand upon the verge of perdition. If you see your

position so plainly, why don't you remedy it?

D. JULIAN. 'Tis of no use. I know I am unjust to doubt her, nay, worse

still. I don't doubt her now. But who will say that, I losing little

by little, and he gaining as steadily, the lie of to-day will not

to-morrow be truth? [_He seizes Don Severo by the arm, and speaks with

voluble earnestness and increasing bitterness._] I, jealous, sombre,

unjust and hard, he noble and generous, resigned and inalterably

sweet-natured, with that halo of martyrdom which, in the eyes of

women, sits so becomingly on the brow of a brave and handsome youth.

Is it not clear that his is the better part, and that my loss is his

gain? while I can do nothing to alter the injustice of it. You see it,

too? And if the ignoble talk of the town should compel those two to

treason, though they may now truthfully assert: 'we are not lovers,'

the force of repetition of the word may eventually drive them to the

fact.

D. SEVERO. If that's how you feel about it, Julian, I think the safest

thing would be to let Ernest carry out his project.

D. JULIAN. That I've come to prevent.

D. SEVERO. Then you are insane. He purposes to go to Buenos Ayres.

Nothing could be better. Let him go—in a sailing vessel, fresh wind to

his sail, and good speed.

D. JULIAN. Do you wish me to show myself so miserably ungrateful and

jealous before Teodora? Don't you know, Severo, that a woman may

despise a lover and love him still, but not so a husband? Contempt is

his dishonour. You would not have my wife follow the unhappy exile

across the ocean with sad regrets? And I, should I see the trace of a

tear upon her cheek, the mere thought that it might be for Ernest

would drive me to strangle her in my arms. [_Speaks with rancour and

rage._]

D. SEVERO. What is it then you do want?

D. JULIAN. I must suffer. The care of unravelling the knot belongs to

the world that conceived the drama solely by looking at us,—so fertile

is its glance for good and ill.

D. SEVERO. [_Moving back._] I think somebody is coming.

SERVANT. [_From without, not seen on the stage._] Don Ernest cannot be

much later. [_Enter Pepito._]

SCENE III

_Don Julian, Don Severo, and Pepito._

D. SEVERO. You here?

PEPITO. [_Aside._] By Jove, I see they know all about it. [_Aloud._] We

are all here. How do you do, uncle? How do, father? [_Aside._] Easy.

They know what's in the wind. [_Aloud._] What brings you?—but I

suppose you are looking for Ernest.

D. SEVERO. What else could bring us here?

D. JULIAN. I daresay you know what this madman is up to?

PEPITO. What he's up to! Well, yes—rather. I know as much as another.

D. SEVERO. And it's to-morrow?

PEPITO. No, to-morrow he is going away, so it must be to-day.

D. JULIAN. [_Surprised._] What do you say?

PEPITO. That's what Pepe Uceda told me last night at the club. He is

Nebreda's second, so he ought to know. But why do you stare so oddly?

Didn't you know——

D. JULIAN. [_Hastily covering his brother's movement._] Everything.

D. SEVERO. We——

D. JULIAN. [_Aside._] Hold your tongue, Severo.—He starts to-morrow, and

to-day he stakes his life—and we are here, of course, to prevent both,

the duel and the departure. [_Don Julian makes it evident that he is

only sounding Pepito's knowledge of facts, and that he is only aware

of the pending departure._]

D. SEVERO. What duel?

D. JULIAN. [_Aside to Severo._] I know nothing about it, but I shall

presently.

PEPITO. [_Aside._] Come, I haven't been such a duffer after all.

D. JULIAN. [_Speaking with an air of certainty._] We know there is a

viscount——

PEPITO. Yes.

D. JULIAN. With whom Ernest proposes to fight—a certain trustworthy

person has informed us, who was at once apprised of it. They say 'tis

a serious matter [_Pepito nods_], a disgraceful quarrel in the

presence of several witnesses [_Pepito nods again_]—the lie direct,

and a deluge of bad language——

PEPITO. [_Interrupts excitedly, glad of his more accurate information._]

Language indeed!—a blow bigger than a monument.

D. SEVERO. On which side?

PEPITO. Ernest struck the viscount.

D. JULIAN. Of course Ernest struck the viscount. I thought you knew

that, Severo. The viscount insulted him. Patience is not the lad's

strong point—hence the blow.

PEPITO. Exactly.

D. JULIAN. [_Confidently._] I told you we knew the whole story. [_Then

anxiously._] The affair is serious?

PEPITO. Most serious. I don't like discussing it, but since you know so

much, there is no need for further mystery.

D. JULIAN. None whatever. [_He approaches Pepito eagerly._]

PEPITO. [_After a pause, adopts an ominous air to announce bad news._]

It is a matter of life and death. [_Looks round triumphantly. Don

Julian and Don Severo start._] The viscount is neither a chicken nor a

skulk. He can handle a sword.

D. JULIAN. And the quarrel? What was it? Nebreda is supposed to be——

PEPITO. It was hardly a quarrel. I'll tell you the facts. [_Both men

draw near eagerly._] Ernest, you know, means to leave Madrid

to-morrow, and take passage in the _Cid_ lying in Cadiz. Luiz Alcaráz

had promised him a letter of introduction, and the poor fellow went

off to meet him at the _café_ and get it, with the best of intentions.

Luiz wasn't there, so he waited. Some of the frequenters of Alcaráz's

table, who did not know him, were in the full swing of glorious

slander, and did not notice his clenched teeth. A name mentioned meant

a reputation blasted. Broad-handed, ready-tongued, every living soul

passed in their review. In this asylum of charity, in the midst of

more smoke than an express train emits, between lifted glass and

dropped cigarette ashes, with here and there a lump of sugar, the

marble was converted for the nonce into a dissecting-table: each woman

dishonoured, another glass of the old tap: a shout of laughter for

each tippler's cut. In four clippings these lads left reputations

ragged and the ladies rent to tatters. Yet what did it all come to?

They but echoed society at a _café_-table. I don't say all this for

myself, nor think it, but 'twas how Ernest spoke when he recounted the

quarrel to me.

D. JULIAN. Well, make an end of it.

PEPITO. The end of it is, that between name and name, there was mention

of one that Ernest could not endure. 'Who dares to ridicule an

honourable man?' he shouts. Somebody retorts: 'a lady,' and names a

woman. His head was instantly on fire, and he flings himself upon

Nebreda. The poor viscount fell like a ninepin, and there you have an

Agramante's camp. The day's business is now a duel—in a room

somewhere—I don't know where.

D. JULIAN. [_Seizing his arms._] The man was I!

PEPITO. Sir?

D. JULIAN. And Teodora the woman? How have we fallen—she, myself, our

love? [_Sits down and covers his face with both hands._]

SEVERO. What have you done, you blockhead!

PEPITO. Didn't he say he knew all about it? and I naturally believed

him.

D. JULIAN. Dishonoured, dishonoured!

SEVERO. [_Approaching him._] Julian, my dear fellow.

D. JULIAN. It is true. I ought to be calm, I know. But what heart can I

have when faith is gone? [_Seizes his brother's hand._] Just heaven!

Why are we so disgraced? What reason have they to turn and throw mud

at us? No matter. I know my duty as a gentleman. I can count on you,

Severo?

SEVERO. On me? Till death, Julian. [_They shake hands cordially._]

JULIAN. [_To Pepito._] The duel?

PEPITO. For three o'clock.

JULIAN. [_Aside._] I'll kill him—yes, kill him. Come. [_To Severo._]

SEVERO. Whither?

D. JULIAN. To look for this viscount.

SEVERO. Do you mean——?

D. JULIAN. I mean to do what I ought and can to avenge myself and save

Don Juan of Acedo's son. Who are the seconds? [_To Pepito._]

PEPITO. Alcaráz and Rueda.

D. JULIAN. I know them both. Let him stay here [_pointing to Pepito_],

so that in the event of Ernest's return——

SEVERO. Of course.

D. JULIAN. [_To Pepito._] Without arousing his suspicion, find out where

the duel takes place.

SEVERO. You hear.

D. JULIAN. [_To his brother._] Come.

SEVERO. What's the matter with you, Julian?

D. JULIAN. 'Tis a long while since I've felt so overjoyed. [_Catches

Severo's arm feverishly._]

SEVERO. The deuce! overjoyed! You're beside yourself.

D. JULIAN. I shall meet that fellow.

SEVERO. Nebreda?

D. JULIAN. Yes. Observe, until to-day calumny was impalpable. There was

no seizing its shape. I have now discovered it, and it has taken a

human form. There it is at hand, in the person of a viscount.

Swallowing blood and gall for the past three months—the devil!—and

now—fancy, face to face—he and I!

[_Exeunt Don Julian and Don Severo._]

SCENE IV

PEPITO. Well, here we are in a nice fix, and all for nothing! However,

in spite of my uncle's belief, it was little short of madness to leave

a resplendent creature under the same roof and in continual contact

with a handsome fellow like Ernest, with a soul on fire, or given to

romanticism. He swears there's nothing in it, and that his feeling for

her is pure affection, that he loves her like a sister, and that my

uncle is a father to him. But I am a sly fox, and, young as I am, I

know a thing or two of this world. I've no faith in this sort of

relations, when the brother is young and the sister is beautiful, and

brotherhood between them a fiction. But suppose it were as he says,

all square. What do outsiders know about that? Nobody is under any

obligation to think the best of his fellows. The pair are seen

everywhere together, and, seeing them, haven't their neighbours a

right to talk? No, swears Ernest. _We hardly ever went out alone._

Once, perhaps? That's enough. If a hundred persons saw them on that

occasion, it is quite the same as if they had been seen in public a

hundred times. Good Lord! How are you going to confront all the

witnesses to prove whether it was once or often they chose to give an

airing to this pure sympathy and brotherly love? 'Tis absurd—neither

just nor reasonable. What we see we may mention—'tis no lie to say it.

'I saw them once,' says one, 'and I,' another. One and one make two.

'And I also'—that makes three. And then a fourth, and a fifth, and so,

summing which, you soon enough reach infinity. We see because we look,

and our senses are there to help us to pass the time, without any

thought of our neighbour. He must look out for himself, and remember

that, if he shuns the occasion, calumny and peril will shun him.

[_Pause._] And take notice that I admit the purity of the affection,

and this makes it so serious a matter. Now, in my opinion, the man who

could be near Teodora, and not fall in love with her, must be a stone.

He may be learned and philosophical, and know physics and mathematics,

but he has a body like another, and she's there with a divine one,

and, body of Bacchus! that's sufficient to found an accusation on. Ah!

if these walls could speak. If Ernest's private thoughts, scattered

here, could take tangible form! By Jove! what's this? An empty frame,

and beside it Don Julian's likeness in its fellow. Teodora was there,

the pendant of my respected uncle. Why has she disappeared? To avoid

temptation? [_Sits down at the table._] If that's the reason—it's bad.

And still worse if the portrait has left its frame for a more

honourable place near his heart. Come forth, suspected imps that float

about, and weave invisible meshes. Ruthlessly denounce this mystic

philosopher. [_Looks about the table and sees the open Dante._] Here's

another. I never come here but I find this divine book open on

Ernest's table. The Divine Comedy! His favourite poem, and I note that

he seems never to get beyond the Francesca page. I conceive two

explanations of the fact. Either the fellow never reads it, or he

never reads any other. But there's a stain, like a tear-drop. My

faith! what mysteries and abysses! And what a difficult thing it is to

be married and live tranquilly. A paper half burnt—[_picks it

up_]—there's still a morsel left. [_Goes over to the balcony trying to

read it. At this moment Ernest enters, and stands watching him._]

SCENE V

_Pepito and Ernest._

ERNEST. What are you looking at?

PEPITO. Hulloa! Ernest. Only a paper I caught on the wing. The wind blew

it away.

ERNEST. [_Takes it and returns it after a short inspection._] I don't

remember what it is.

PEPITO. Verses. You may remember [_reads with difficulty_] 'The flame

that consumes me.' [_Aside._] _Devora_ rhymes with _Teodora_.

ERNEST. It is nothing important.

PEPITO. No, nothing. [_Throws away the paper._]

ERNEST. That worthless bit of paper is a symbol of our life—a few sobs

of sorrow, and a little flake of ashes.

PEPITO. Then they were verses?

ERNEST. Yes. When I've nothing better to do, sometimes—my pen runs away

with me—I write them at night.

PEPITO. And to prick enthusiasm, and get into harness, you seek

inspiration in the master's book.

ERNEST. It would seem——

PEPITO. Say no more. 'Tis truly a gigantic work. The episode of

Francesca. [_Pointing to the page._]

ERNEST. [_Ironically and impatiently._] You can't guess wrong to-day.

PEPITO. Not entirely, by Jove. Here, where the book is open, I find

something I can't guess, and you must explain it to me. Reading a

love-tale together to pass the time, we are told that Francesca and

Paolo reached that part where the gallant author, proving himself no

amateur in the business, sings the loves of Launcelot and Queen

Guinevere. The match fell pat. The kiss in the book was repeated by

the passionate youth on the girl's mouth. And at this point of the

story, with rare skill and sublime truth, the Florentine poet tells us

what happens. [_Points to the line._] But this is what I do not

understand. _Galeoto was the book they were reading, and they read no

more._ They stopped reading? That's easy enough to understand. But

this Galeoto, tell me where he comes in, and who was he? You ought to

know, since he has given his name to the play that is to make you

famous. Let me see. [_Takes up the MS. and examines it._]

ERNEST. Galeoto was the go-between for the Queen and Launcelot and in

all loves the _third_ may be truthfully nicknamed Galeoto, above all

when we wish to suggest an ugly word without shocking an audience.

PEPITO. I see, but have we no Spanish word to express it?

ERNEST. We have one, quite suitable and expressive enough. 'Tis an

office that converts desires into ducats, overcomes scruples, and is

fed upon the affections. It has a name, but to use it would be putting

a fetter upon myself, forcing myself to express what, after all, I

would leave unsaid. [_Takes the MS. from Pepito and flings it upon the

table._] Each especial case, I have remarked, has its own especial

go-between. Sometimes it is the entire social mass that is Galeoto. It

then unconsciously exercises the office under the influence of a vice

of quite another aspect, but so dexterously does it work against

honour and modesty that no greater Galeoto can ever be found. Let a

man and woman live happily, in tranquil and earnest fulfilment of

their separate duties. Nobody minds them, and they float along at

ease. But God be praised, this is a state of things that does not last

long in Madrid. One morning somebody takes the trouble to notice them,

and from that moment, behold society engaged in the business, without

aim or object, on the hunt for hidden frailty and impurity. Then it

pronounces and judges, and there is no logic that can convince it, nor

living man who can hope to persuade it, and the honestest has not a

rag of honour left. And the terrible thing is, that while it begins in

error it generally ends in truth. The atmosphere is so dense, misery

so envelops the pair, such is the press and torrent of slander, that

they unconsciously seek one another, unite lovelessly, drift toward

their fall, and adore each other until death. The world was the

stumbling-stone of virtue, and made clear the way for shame—was

Galeoto and—[_aside_] stay! what mad thought inflames me!

PEPITO. [_Aside._] If that's the way he discourses to Teodora, heaven

help poor Don Julian. [_Aloud._] I suppose last night's verses dealt

with the subject.

ERNEST. Yes, they did.

PEPITO. How can you waste your time so coolly, and sit there so calm,

doing nothing, when in another hour you will be measuring swords with

Nebreda, who, for all his dandy's cane, is a man when put upon his

mettle? Wouldn't it be saner and wiser to practise fencing instead of

expounding questions of verse and rhyme? You look so mighty cool that

I almost doubt if you regard your meeting with the viscount as

serious.

ERNEST. No,—for a good reason. If I kill him, the world gains; if he

kill me, I gain.

PEPITO. Well, that's good.

ERNEST. Don't say any more about it.

PEPITO. [_Aside._] Now I must warily find out. [_Approaches him and

speaks in a low voice._] Is it for to-day?

ERNEST. Yes, to-day.

PEPITO. Outside the town?

ERNEST. No, there's no time for that. Besides, we wish to keep it quiet.

PEPITO. In a house, then?

ERNEST. So I proposed.

PEPITO. Where?

ERNEST. Upstairs. [_Speaks with cold indifference._] There's a room

unlet upstairs, with a side window, through which nobody can look.

Under the circumstances it's better than a field, and will be had for

a handful of silver.

PEPITO. And now all you need——

ERNEST. The swords!

PEPITO. I hear voices outside. Somebody is coming—the seconds?

ERNEST. May be.

PEPITO. It sounds like a woman's voice. [_Approaches the door._]

ERNEST. [_Approaching also._] But who's keeping them?

SCENE VI

_Ernest, Pepito, and Servant._

SERVANT. [_Mysteriously._] Somebody wants to see you, sir.

ERNEST. Who?

SERVANT. A lady.

ERNEST. How extraordinary!

PEPITO. [_Aside to servant._] What does she want?

SERVANT. [_To Pepito._] She is crying.

PEPITO. [_Aloud._] Is she young?

SERVANT. Really, sir, I can't say. It's very dark outside, and the

lady's face is so thickly veiled that the devil himself couldn't tell

what she's like, and she speaks so low you can't even hear her.

ERNEST. Who can she be?

PEPITO. Who could want to see you?

ERNEST. I cannot think.

PEPITO. [_Aside._] This is startling. [_Takes up his hat and holds out

his hand._] Well, I'll leave you in peace. Good-bye and good luck.

[_To the servant._] What are you waiting for, you booby?

SERVANT. For orders to show the lady in.

PEPITO. In such a case 'tis your business to anticipate them. And

afterwards, until the veiled one has departed, you mustn't let any one

in unless the sky were falling.

SERVANT. Then I am to show her in?

ERNEST. Yes. [_To Pepito at the door._] Good-bye.

PEPITO. Good-bye, Ernest. [_Exeunt servant and Pepito._]

ERNEST. A lady? on what pretext? What does this mean? [_Enter Teodora,

thickly veiled; she stands without approaching._] Ah, there she is!

SCENE VII

_Teodora and Ernest, she behind not daring to

advance, he turned toward her._

ERNEST. You desire to speak to me, madam? Kindly be seated. [_Offers her

a chair._]

TEODORA. [_Unveiling._] Forgive me, Ernest.

ERNEST. Teodora!

TEODORA. I am wrong to come—am I not?

ERNEST. [_Abruptly and stammering._] I can't say—since I don't know to

what I owe this honour. But what am I saying? Alas! Here, in my rooms,

madam, reverence attends you, than which you cannot find a greater

[_with devotion_]. But what wrong can you possibly fear here, lady?

TEODORA. None—and there was a time—but that _once_ is for ever past. No

thought of doubt or fear was then. I might have crossed any room on

your arm without blush or fluttering pulse. But now! They tell me that

you are starting for America to-morrow—and I—yes—like those who go

away—perhaps not to return—it is so sad to lose a friend!—before

Julian—before the whole world—thinking only of our affection—I myself,

Ernest, would have held out my arms to you—in farewell.

ERNEST. [_Starts and quickly restrains himself._] Oh, Teodora!

TEODORA. But now I suppose it is not the same thing. There is a gulf

between us.

ERNEST. You are right, madam. We may no longer care for one another, be

no longer brother and sister. The mutual touch of palm would leave our

hands unclean. 'Tis all for ever past. What we have now to learn is to

hate one another.

TEODORA. [_In naïve consternation._] Hate! surely not!

ERNEST. Have I used that word—and to you! poor child!

TEODORA. Yes.

ERNEST. Don't heed me. If you needed my life, and the occasion offered

itself, claim it, Teodora, for, to give my life for you would

be——[_with passion_] it would be my duty. [_With a sudden change of

voice. Pause._] Hate! if my lips pronounced the word, I was thinking

of the misery,—I was thinking of the injury I have unwittingly wrought

one to whom I owe so much. Yes, you, Teodora, must hate me—but I—ah,

no!

TEODORA. [_Sadly._] They have made me shed tears enough; yes, you are

right in that, Ernest [_with tenderness_], but you I do not accuse.

Who could condemn or blame you for all this talk? You have nothing to

do with the venomous solicitude with which evil minds honour us, nor

with poor Julian's clouded temper. It is sorrow that makes him

restive, and his suffering wounds me, for I know that it springs from

doubt of my devotion.

ERNEST. That is what I cannot understand [_angrily_], and in him less

than in another. It is what drives me wild: by the living God, I

protest it is not worthy of pity, and there is no excuse for it. That

the man should exist who could doubt a woman like you!

TEODORA. Poor fellow, he pays a heavy price for his savage distrust.

ERNEST. [_Horrified to find he has been blaming Don Julian to Teodora._]

What have I said? I don't accuse him—no—I meant——[_He hastens to

exculpate Don Julian and modify his former words._] Anybody might feel

the same, that is, if he were very much in love. In our earthly

egoism, don't we doubt the very God in heaven? And the owner of a

treasure jealously watches it as gold, and cannot but fear for it. I,

too, in his place, would be full of doubt,—yes—even of my own brother.

[_Speaks with increasing fervour, and again restrains himself,

perceiving that he is on the brink of a peril he would avoid. Teodora

hears voices outside and rushes to the door._]

ERNEST. Whither are you leading me, rebel heart? What depth have I

stirred? I accuse the world of calumny, and would now prove it right.

TEODORA. Do you hear? Somebody is coming.

ERNEST. [_Following her._] It is hardly two o'clock. Can it be——?

TEODORA. [_With terror._] It is Julian's voice.—He is coming in!

ERNEST. No, they have prevented him.

TEODORA. [_Turns to Ernest, still frightened._] If it were Julian?

[_Moves towards the bedroom door. Ernest detains her respectfully._]

ERNEST. Should it be he, stay here. Loyalty is our shield. Were it one

of those who distrust us—then there, Teodora. [_Points to the door._]

Ah, nobody. [_Listening._]

TEODORA. How my heart throbs!

ERNEST. You need not be afraid. The person who wanted to come in has

gone away—or it was an illusion. For God's sake, Teodora——! [_Advances

up the stage._]

TEODORA. I had so much to say to you, Ernest, and the time has passed so

quickly.

ERNEST. The time has flown.

TEODORA. I wanted——

ERNEST. Teodora, pray forgive me—but is it prudent? If any one came

in—and, indeed, I fear some one will.

TEODORA. That is why I came—to prevent it.

ERNEST. So that——?

TEODORA. I know everything, and I am stricken with horror at the thought

that blood should be shed on my account. My head is on fire, my heart

is bursting. [_Strikes her breast._]

ERNEST. It is the affront that burns and shames you until my hand has

struck at Nebreda's life. He wanted mud! Well, let him have it stained

with blood.

TEODORA. You would kill him?

ERNEST. Certainly. [_Represses Teodora's movement of supplication._] You

can dispose of me in all else but in this one thing. Do not ask me to

feel compassion for a man whose insult I remember.

TEODORA. [_Prayerfully, with a sob._] For my sake!

ERNEST. For your sake?

TEODORA. It would be such a horrible scandal.

ERNEST. That is possible.

TEODORA. You can say it so coolly, and not endeavour to avoid it, not

even when it is I who implore you!

ERNEST. I cannot avoid it, but I can chastise it: so I think and say,

and this is my business. Others will look for the insult, I for the

punishment.

TEODORA. [_Coming nearer and speaking softly, as if afraid of her own

voice._] And Julian?

ERNEST. Well?

TEODORA. If he were to know about it?

ERNEST. He will know about it.

TEODORA. What will he say?

ERNEST. What?

TEODORA. That only my husband, the man who loves me, has a right to

defend me.

ERNEST. Every honourable man has the right to defend a lady. He may not

even know her, be neither a friend, nor a relative, nor a lover. It is

enough for him to hear a woman insulted. Why do I fight this duel? Why

do I defend her? Because I heard the calumny. Because I am myself. Who

is so base as to give his protection by scale and measure? Was I not

there? Then whoever it was—I or another—who was first on the scene——

TEODORA. [_Listens eagerly, dominated by him, and holds out her hand to

him._] This is noble and honourable, and worthy of you, Ernest [_then

restrains herself and moves backward_]. But it leaves Julian

humiliated [_with conviction_].

ERNEST. He? humiliated!

TEODORA. Most surely.

ERNEST. Why?

TEODORA. For no reason whatever.

ERNEST. Who will say so?

TEODORA. Everybody.

ERNEST. But wherefore?

TEODORA. When the world hears of the affront, and learns that it was not

my husband who avenged me, and above all [_drops her eyes ashamed_]

that it was you who took his place—have we not then a new scandal

topping the old?

ERNEST. [_Convinced but protests._] If one had always to think of what

people will say, by Heaven there would be no manner or means of living

then!

TEODORA. It is so, nevertheless.

ERNEST. Just so. 'Tis horrible.

TEODORA. Then yield.

ERNEST. Impossible.

TEODORA. I beseech you.

ERNEST. No. Looking into the matter, as nobody can know what will

happen, it is better that I should face Nebreda. For, after all, if

the fellow lack a sense of honour, he can use a sword.

TEODORA. [_Wounded and humiliated in the protection Ernest seems to

offer Don Julian._] My husband is not lacking in courage.

ERNEST. Fatality again! Either I have expressed myself ill, or you do

not understand me. I know his worth. But when a desperate injury lies

between men of courage, who knows what may happen? which of them may

fall, and which may kill? And if this man's sword must strike Don

Julian or Ernest, can you doubt which it ought to be? [_Questions her

with sad sincerity._]

TEODORA. [_In anguish_] You!—oh, no—not that either.

ERNEST. Why? If it is my fate? Nobody loses by my death, and I lose

still less.

TEODORA. For Heaven's sake, do not say that. [_Barely able to repress

her sobs._]

ERNEST. What do I leave behind me? Neither friendship nor strong love.

What woman is there to follow my corpse shedding a lover's tears?

TEODORA. Last night I prayed for you—and you say that nobody——I could

not bear you to die. [_Vehemently._]

ERNEST. Ah, we pray for any one; we only weep for one. [_With passion._]

TEODORA. [_Startled._] Ernest!

ERNEST. [_Terrified by his own words._] What!

TEODORA. [_Moving further away._] Nothing.

ERNEST. [_Also moving away and looking nervously down._] I told you a

little while ago I was half mad. Do not heed me. [_Pause. Both remain

silent and pensive, at some distance, not looking at each other._]

TEODORA. [_Starting and glancing anxiously down the stage._] Again!

ERNEST. [_Following her movement._] Somebody has come.

TEODORA. They are trying to get in.

ERNEST. [_Listening._] There can be no doubt of it. There, Teodora.

[_Points to the bedroom door._]

TEODORA. My honour is my shield.

ERNEST. But it is not your husband.

TEODORA. Not Julian?

ERNEST. [_Leading her to the door._] No.

TEODORA. I hoped——[_Detains him with an air of supplication._] Will you

give up this duel?

ERNEST. Give it up? When I've struck him!

TEODORA. I didn't know that. [_Despairingly, but understands that

nothing can be done._] Then fly.

ERNEST. I fly!

TEODORA. For my sake, for his sake—for God's sake!

ERNEST. [_Despairingly._] You must loathe me to propose such a thing to

me. Never!

TEODORA. One word only. Are they coming for you now?

ERNEST. It is not yet time.

TEODORA. Swear it to me.

ERNEST. Yes, Teodora. And you—say you don't hate me.

TEODORA. Never.

PEPITO. [_Outside._] Nothing. I must see him.

ERNEST. Quickly.

TEODORA. Yes. [_Hides in the bedroom._]

PEPITO. Why do you prevent me?

ERNEST. Ah, calumny is working to make the lie truth.

SCENE VIII

_Ernest and Pepito, without his hat, exhibiting

strong excitement._

PEPITO. Go to the devil—I will go in—Ernest.

ERNEST. What has happened?

PEPITO. I hardly know how to tell you—yet I must——

ERNEST. Speak.

PEPITO. My head is in a whirl. Christ above, who would think——

ERNEST. Quickly. A clear account of what has happened.

PEPITO. What has happened? A great misfortune. Don Julian heard of the

duel. He came here to look for you, and you were out. He went away to

find the seconds, and marched them off to Nebreda's house.

ERNEST. Nebreda's! How?

PEPITO. The Lord send you sense. Don Julian's way, of course, who makes

short work of convention and the will of others.

ERNEST. Go on——

PEPITO. [_Going to the door._] They're coming, I believe.

ERNEST. Who?

PEPITO. They—they're carrying Don Julian.

ERNEST. You terrify me. Explain at once. [_Catches his arm violently,

and drags him forward._]

PEPITO. He compelled him to fight. There was no way out of it. The

viscount cried: 'Very well, between us two.' It was settled it should

take place here. Don Julian came upstairs. Your servant sent him away,

protesting you were engaged with a lady, and swearing nobody could

enter.

ERNEST. And then?

PEPITO. Don Julian went downstairs muttering 'better so. I have the

day's work for myself.' And he, my father, Nebreda and the seconds

came back together, and went upstairs.

ERNEST. They fought?

PEPITO. Furiously, as men fight when their intent is deadly, and their

enemy's heart is within reach of the sword's point.

ERNEST. And Don Julian! No—it must be a lie.

PEPITO. Here they are.

ERNEST. Silence. Tell me who it is, but speak softly.

PEPITO. There. [_Enter Don Julian, Don Severo, and Rueda._ _The two men

support Don Julian, who is badly wounded._]

ERNEST. Heaven preserve us!

SCENE IX

_Ernest_, _Pepito_, _Don Julian_, _Don Severo_, _and Rueda_.

ERNEST. Don Julian! my friend, my father, my benefactor! [_Hurries

excitedly toward him, and speaks brokenly._]

D. JULIAN. [_Weakly._] Ernest!

ERNEST. Oh, wretched I!

SEVERO. Quick, come away.

ERNEST. Father!

SEVERO. He is fainting with pain.

ERNEST. For my sake!

JULIAN. It is not so.

ERNEST. Through me—pardon! [_Takes Don Julian's hand and bends on one

knee before him._]

JULIAN. No need to ask it, lad. You did your duty, and I did mine.

SEVERO. A couch. [_Loosens his hold of Don Julian, and Pepito takes his

place._]

PEPITO. [_Pointing to the bedroom._] Let us carry him in there.

ERNEST. [_Shouting terribly._] Nebreda!

SEVERO. Let there be an end to folly. Is it your intention to kill him

outright?

ERNEST. [_With frenzy._] Folly, oh, we'll see. I have two to avenge now.

It is my right. [_Rushes down the stage._]

SEVERO. [_Moving to the right_.] We'll take him into your room and lay

him on the bed. [_Ernest wheels round in terror._]

ERNEST. Where?

SEVERO. In here.

PEPITO. Yes.

ERNEST. No. [_Strides back, and stands before the door. The group are on

the point of lifting Don Julian, desist, and stare at Ernest in

indignant surprise._]

SEVERO. You forbid it?

PEPITO. Are you mad?

SEVERO. Back: can't you see he is dying?

D. JULIAN. What is it? He doesn't wish it? [_Raises himself and looks at

Ernest in distrust and fear._]

REUDA. I don't understand it.

PEPITO. Nor I.

ERNEST. He is dying—and implores me—and doubts me—father!

SEVERO. Come, we must. [_Pushes open the door above Ernest's shoulder.

Teodora is discovered._]

ERNEST. My God!

SEVERO and PEPITO. She!

REUDA. A woman!

TEODORA. [_Coming forward to her husband and embracing him._] Julian!

D. JULIAN. Who is it? [_Pushes her away to stare at her, drags himself

to his feet with a violent effort, and shakes himself free of all

aid._] Teodora! [_Falls lifeless to the ground._]

------------------------------------------------------------------------

ACT III

_The same decoration as first act: an arm-chair instead of a sofa. It is

night; a lighted lamp stands on the table._

SCENE I

_Pepito listening at the door on the right, then comes

back into the middle of the stage._

PEPITO. The crisis is past at last. I hear nothing. Poor Don Julian!

He's in a sad way. His life hangs in the balance: on one side death

awaits him, and on the other another death, that of the soul, of

honour—either abyss deeper than hopeless love. The devil! All this

tragedy is making me more sentimental than that fellow with his plays

and verses. The tune of disaster, scandal, death, treason, and

disgrace, hums in my brain. By Jove, what a day, and what a night! and

the worst is yet to come. Well, it certainly was madness to move him

in his condition; but when once my uncle gets an idea into his head,

there's no reasoning with him. And, after all, he was right. No

honourable man, in his place, could have stayed, and he is a man of

spirit. Who is coming? my mother, I believe—yes. [_Enter Doña

Mercedes._]

SCENE II

_Pepito and Doña Mercedes._

MERCEDES. Where's Severo?

PEPITO. He has not left my uncle for a moment. I had no idea he was so

attached to him. If what I fear should happen——

MERCEDES. How is your uncle?

PEPITO. He suffers greatly, but says nothing. Sometimes he calls out

'Teodora' in a low harsh voice, and sometimes 'Ernest'; and then he

tugs violently at the sheets, and lies quiet again as a statue,

staring vacantly into space. Now his brow is bathed in the cold sweat

of death, and then fever seizes him. He sits up in bed, listens

attentively, and shouts that _he_ and _she_ are waiting for him. He tries

to jump out of bed to rush at them, and all my father's entreaties and

commands barely suffice to restrain him or soothe him. There's no

quieting him. Anger races hot through his veins, and thought is a

flame. It is shocking, mother, to see the bitter way his lips

contract, and how his fingers close in a vice, with head all wild, and

pupils dilated as though they drank in with yearning and despair every

shadow that floats around the chamber.

MERCEDES. How does your father bear it?

PEPITO. He groans and breathes of vengeance. He, too, mutters the names

of Teodora and Ernest. I hope to God he will not meet either, for if

he should, small chance there is of restraining his fury.

MERCEDES. Your father is a good man.

PEPITO. Yes, but with a temper——

MERCEDES. It is not easily aroused, however. But when he has cause——

PEPITO. With all due respect, he's then a very tiger.

MERCEDES. Only when provoked.

PEPITO. I don't know about other occasions, but this time he certainly

has provocation enough. And Teodora?

MERCEDES. She is upstairs. She wanted to come down—and cried—like a

Magdalen.

PEPITO. Already! Repentant or erring?

MERCEDES. Don't speak so. Unhappy girl, she is but a child.

PEPITO. Who, innocent and candid, sweet and pure and meek, kills Don

Julian. So that, if I am to accept your word, and regard her as a

child, and such is her work on the edge of infancy, we may pray God in

his mercy to guard us from her when she shall have put on years.

MERCEDES. She is hardly to be blamed. The infamy lies with your fine

friend—he of the dramas, the poet and dreamer. He it is who is the

culprit.

PEPITO. I don't deny it.

MERCEDES. Where is he?

PEPITO. Where is he? At this moment racing about the streets and public

places, flying from his conscience, and unable to get away from it.

MERCEDES. He has a conscience?

PEPITO. So it would seem.

MERCEDES. Oh, what a tragedy

PEPITO. A misfortune!

MERCEDES. Such a deception!

PEPITO. A cruel one.

MERCEDES. What shocking treason!

PEPITO. Unparalleled.

MERCEDES. Poor Julian!

PEPITO. Melancholy fate! [_Enter servant._]

SCENE III

_Doña Mercedes, Pepito, and servant._

SERVANT. Don Ernest.

MERCEDES. He dares——

PEPITO. This is too much.

SERVANT. I thought——

PEPITO. You had no business to think anything.

SERVANT. He is only passing. There is a cab waiting, so——

PEPITO. What are we to do?

MERCEDES. Let him come in. [_Exit servant._]

PEPITO. I'll give him his dismissal.

MERCEDES. Do it cleverly.

SCENE IV

_Doña Mercedes, Pepito, and Ernest. Doña Mercedes seated in the

arm-chair, Pepito standing, and Ernest behind, whom neither salute nor

look at._

ERNEST. [_Aside._] Hostile silence, anger, and contempt Through no fault

of my own, I now appear to them a prodigy of evil and insolence, and

they all despise me.

PEPITO. Listen to me, Ernest. [_Turns round to him and speaks in a hard

voice._]

ERNEST. Well.

PEPITO. I have to tell you——

ERNEST. To go away, perhaps.

PEPITO. [_Changing his tone._] Good heavens! What a notion! I

only—wanted to ask you—if it is true [_hunts for something to say_]

that you afterwards—the viscount, you know?

ERNEST. [_Gloomily looking away._] Yes.

PEPITO. How did it happen?

ERNEST. I ran downstairs—half mad—I found them—we went upstairs

again—locked the door. Two men—two witnesses—two swords—and

afterwards—I hardly know what happened. Swords clashed—there was a

cry—a thrust—blood spouted—an assassin stood—and a man lay stretched

on the ground.

PEPITO. The devil! Sharp work. Did you hear, mother?

MERCEDES. More blood shed.

PEPITO. Nebreda deserved it.

ERNEST. [_Approaching her._] Mercedes, for pity's sake—one word—Don

Julian? How is he? If you could know what my anguish is—my sorrow—what

do they say?

MERCEDES. That the wound, since his removal, is mortal, and it would be

worse for him if you went near the bed of suffering and death. Leave

this house.

ERNEST. I must see him.

MERCEDES. Go, instantly.

ERNEST. I will not.

PEPITO. What insolence!

ERNEST. It is befitting. [_To Pepito._] Pardon me, madam [_turning

respectfully to Mercedes_]; you see I am achieving the general opinion

of me.

MERCEDES. For pity's sake, Ernest——

ERNEST. Listen, Mercedes. When a man such as I am is abused, and for no

reason on earth treated as a blackguard, and finds himself snared,

with crime thrust upon him, 'tis indeed a perilous case,—for others

rather than for himself. I, in this fierce struggle with miserable

fate, have lost honour, friendship and love, and have now nothing more

to lose but the shabby shreds of an insipid and dreary existence. I

have come here solely to know if there is any hope—only for that—and

then—but you cannot deny me so slight a consolation? [_Pleading._] One

word!

MERCEDES. Very well. They say—that he is better.

ERNEST. True? You are not deceiving me? You are sure—quite sure? Oh! you

are merciful, you are kind. It is true, quite true! May God spare him!

Not his death. Let him live and be happy once more; let him forgive me

and embrace me once again! Only let me see him. [_Falls into the

arm-chair beside the table sobbing, and covers his face with his

hands. Pause._]

MERCEDES. If your father should hear—if he should come out. Courage,

Ernest, be sensible. [_Doña Mercedes and Pepito endeavour to screen

Ernest._]

PEPITO. These nervous creatures are terrible. They sob and kill in the

same breath.

ERNEST. If you see me crying, while sobs shake my throat in an

hysterical convulsion, and I seem as weak as a child, or a woman,

believe me, it is not for myself, but for him—for her—for their lost

happiness, for this indelible blot upon their name,—for the affront I

am the cause of, in return for all their love and kindness. It is not

my fault, but my utter misfortune. That is why I weep. My God, if I

could wipe out this wretched past with tears, I would gladly weep away

my blood to the last drop.

MERCEDES. Silence, I implore!

PEPITO. There, we will discuss tears and sorrows another time.

ERNEST. If everybody else is discussing them to-day, why should we too

not speak of them? The whole town is astir and on tiptoe with

excitement. It has swallowed up, devoured and blighted three

reputations, three names, three persons, and floated them on the froth

of laughter and a wave of degrading chatter down the straits of human

misery, into the social abysm of shame, where for ever lie engulfed

the conscience, and fame, and future of the unfortunates.

MERCEDES. Not so loud, Ernest.

ERNEST. Why? since the others are not murmurs, but voices, that thunder

through the air? The tragic event is known all over the town, and each

one has his own way of telling it. Wonderful! everything is known

except the truth. 'Tis fatality. [_Doña Mercedes and Pepito exhibit

keen interest in hearing the reports._] Some say that Don Julian

discovered Teodora in my rooms, and that I attacked him in blind fury

and killed him on the spot. Others—and these would seem to be my

friends, since they raise me from the rank of vulgar assassin to the

noble level of duellist—aver that we fought loyally like gentlemen.

And there are others, again, who have the tale more accurately, and

recount how Don Julian took my place in the arranged meeting with

Nebreda—that I arrived late on the scene—either from design or fear,

or because I was in the arms——but, no; it would burn my lips to give

this version—the thought of it sets my brain on fire. Seek the basest,

the vilest, that which most blackens—the filth of the mind, the mire

of the soul, the dross of degraded consciences; cast it to the wind as

it whistles along the streets upon bespattering tongues, and you will

have the tale, and may see what reputation remains for an innocent

woman and two honest men when the town takes to jabbering about them.

MERCEDES. It is sad, I admit; but perhaps public opinion is not

altogether to blame.

PEPITO. Teodora did go to your rooms—she was there——

ERNEST. To prevent the duel with Nebreda.

PEPITO. Then why did she hide herself?

ERNEST. Because we feared her presence would be misconstrued.

PEPITO. The explanation is easy and simple. The difficult thing, Ernest,

is to get us to believe it, for there is another still more easy and

simple.

ERNEST. Which dishonours more, and that's the beauty of it.

PEPITO. Well, at least, admit that Teodora was giddy, if not really

culpable.

ERNEST. Guilt is prudent and cautious. On the other hand, how imprudent

is innocence!

PEPITO. Look here, if your rule holds good for everybody, the worst of

us is an angel or a saint.

ERNEST. You are right. What does it matter? What is the weight or value

of such calumny? The worst of it is that thought is degraded by mean

contact with a mean idea. From force of dwelling upon a crime, the

conscience becomes familiar with it. It shows itself terrible and

repellent—_but it shows itself_—at night, in dark solitude!

Yes—[_aside_] but what! why are they listening to me so strangely,

almost in suspense? [_Aloud_] I am myself; my name is an honourable

one. If I killed Nebreda solely because of a lie, what would I not do

to myself if guilt threatened to give the truth to calumny?

PEPITO. [_Aside to Mercedes._] He denied it! Why, it is as clear as

daylight.

MERCEDES. [_Aside to Pepito._] He's wandering.

PEPITO. 'Tis only his confession he's making.

MERCEDES. [_Aloud._] That will do, Ernest. Go, now.

ERNEST. Impossible, madam. I should go mad if I had to spend to-night

away from this sick-room—out of my mind.

MERCEDES. But if Severo came and found you?

ERNEST. What do I care? He is a loyal gentleman. Better still, let him

come. We fly from fear, and only the guilty are afraid. Nothing will

make me run away, or acknowledge fear.

PEPITO. [_Listening._] Somebody is coming.

MERCEDES. Is it he?

PEPITO. [_Going down the stage._] No, 'tis Teodora.

ERNEST. Teodora! Teodora! I want to see her.

MERCEDES. [_Sternly._] Ernest!

ERNEST. Yes, I must ask her to forgive me.

MERCEDES. You don't remember——

ERNEST. I remember everything and understand. We two together! Ah, no.

Enough. You need not fear. For her would I shed my blood, lay down my

life, sacrifice my future, honour—all! But see her? never. 'Tis no

longer possible. The mist of blood has risen between us. [_Goes out on

the left._]

SCENE V.

_Doña Mercedes and Pepito._

MERCEDES. Leave me alone with her. Go inside to your father. I want to

see into her heart, and shall be able to probe its depths with my

tongue.

MERCEDES. Good-bye.

PEPITO. Good-bye. [_Goes out on the right._]

MERCEDES. Now to put my plan into work.

SCENE VI

_Teodora and Doña Mercedes. Teodora enters timidly, and stands near Don

Julian's door on the right, listening anxiously, and muffling her sobs

with her handkerchief._

MERCEDES. Teodora.

TEODORA. It is you. [_Advances to her._]

MERCEDES. Courage! what good does crying do?

TEODORA. How is he? how is he? the truth!

MERCEDES. Much better.

TEODORA. Will he recover?

MERCEDES. I think so.

TEODORA. My God! My life for his.

MERCEDES. [_Draws her affectionately forward._] And then—I have faith in

your good sense. I can measure your remorse by your tears and anxiety.

TEODORA. Yes [_Doña Mercedes sits down with a satisfied air_], I did

wrong, I know, in going to see him [_Doña Mercedes looks disappointed

the confession is no worse_], but last night you told me about the

outrage and the duel. I was grateful to you for doing so, although I

did not then suspect the harm you did me, nor could I now explain it

to you. Oh, what a night! [_Crosses her hands and glances upward._] I

have cried and raved, thinking of Julian's plight, of the scandal, of

the violent quarrel and the bloodshed. Everything passed before my

eyes—and then—poor Ernest dying, perhaps, for my sake! But why do you

look at me so strangely? there can be no harm in it, surely! Or are

you unconvinced, and do you think as the rest do?

MERCEDES. [_drily._] I think your fear for that fellow's life altogether

superfluous.

TEODORA. Why? with so skilled an antagonist! You have seen it—Julian——

MERCEDES. Julian has been avenged. The man who killed him no longer

lives, so that you have been wasting your fears and your tears. [_With

deliberate hardness._]

TEODORA. [_Eagerly._] It was Ernest——

MERCEDES. Yes, Ernest.

TEODORA. He met the viscount?

MERCEDES. Face to face.

TEODORA. [_Unable to restrain herself._] How noble and brave!

MERCEDES. Teodora!

TEODORA. What do you mean? Tell me.

MERCEDES. [_Sternly._] I can read your thought.

TEODORA. My thought!

MERCEDES. Yes.

TEODORA. Which?

MERCEDES. You know very well.

TEODORA. Have I no right to be glad because Julian is avenged? Is that

an impulse I could be expected to repress?

MERCEDES. That was not your feeling.

TEODORA. You know so much more about it than I do!

MERCEDES. [_Pointedly._] Believe me, admiration is not far from love.

TEODORA. What do I admire?

MERCEDES. This youth's courage.

TEODORA. His nobility.

MERCEDES. Quite so, but that's the beginning.

TEODORA. What folly!

MERCEDES. It _is_ folly—but on your side.

TEODORA. You persist! Ever this accursed idea!—while it is with immense,

with infinite pity that I am filled.

MERCEDES. For whom?

TEODORA. For whom else but Julian?

MERCEDES. Have you never learnt, Teodora, that in a woman's heart pity

and forgetfulness may mean one and the same thing?

TEODORA. I beseech you—Mercedes—silence!

MERCEDES. I wish to let light in upon the state of your mind,—to turn

upon it the lamp of truth, lit by my experience.

TEODORA. I hear you, but while I listen, it seems no longer a sister, a

friend, a mother that speaks to me, so hateful are your words. Your

lips seem to speak at inspiration of the devil's prompting. Why should

you strive to convince me that little by little I am ceasing to love

my husband, and that more and more I am imbued with an impure

tenderness, with a feeling that burns and stains? I who love Julian as

dearly as ever, who would give the last drop of blood in my body for a

single breath of life for him—for him, from whom I am now

separated—[_points to his room_]—why, I should like to go in there

this moment, if your husband did not bar my way, and press Julian once

more in my arms. I would so inundate him with my tears, and so close

him round with the passion of my love, that its warmth would melt his

doubts, and his soul would respond to the fervour of mine. But it is

not because I adore my husband that I am bound to abhor the faithful

and generous friend who so nobly risked his life for me. And if I

don't hate him, is that a reason to conclude that I love him? The

world can think such things. I hear such strange stories, and such sad

events have happened, and calumny has so embittered me, that I find

myself wondering if public opinion can be true,—in doubt of myself.

Can it be that I really am the victim of a hideous passion,

unconsciously influenced by it? and in some sad and weak moment shall

I yield to the senses, and be subjugated by this tyrannous fire?

MERCEDES. You are speaking the truth?

TEODORA. Can you doubt it?

MERCEDES. You really do not love him?

TEODORA. Mercedes, what words have I that will convince you? At another

time, such a question would drive the blood of anger to my brow, and

to-day, you see, I am discussing with you whether I am honest or not.

Yes, am I really so? To the depth of the soul? No, for endurance of

this humiliation proves me worthy of it. [_Hides her face in her hands

and flings herself down in the arm-chair._]

MERCEDES. Do not cry so, Teodora. I believe in you. Enough. No more

tears. Let me but add one more word, and there's an end to the matter.

Ernest is not what you believe him to be. He is not worthy of your

trust.

TEODORA. He is good, Mercedes.

MERCEDES. No.

TEODORA. He is fond of Julian.

MERCEDES. He would betray him.

TEODORA. Again! My God!

MERCEDES. I no longer accuse you of responding to his passion, but I

only assert—I would warn you that _he loves you_.

TEODORA. [_Rising in anger._] Loves me!

MERCEDES. It is known to everybody. In this very room, a moment ago,

before Pepito and me—you understand?

TEODORA. No, explain at once—what?

MERCEDES. He openly confessed it. He made a violent declaration, swore

that he was ready to sacrifice life, honour, soul and conscience for

you. And when you came, he wanted to see you. He only yielded to the

force of my entreaties and went away. I tremble lest he should meet

Severo and their encounter lead to an explosion. And you—what have you

to say now?

TEODORA. [_Who has listened to Mercedes intently, held in an indefinable

gloomy terror._] Heavens above! Can it be true? and I who felt—who

professed so sincere an affection for him!

MERCEDES. There, you are on the point of crying again.

TEODORA. The heart has no tears for the manifold deceptions of this

miserable life. A lad so pure and finely natured,—and to see him now

so debased and spotted! And you say that he actually uttered those

words here—he!—Ernest. Oh, oh, Mercedes! send him away from this

house.

MERCEDES. Ah, that is what I wanted. Your energy consoles me. [_With

evidence of honest satisfaction._] Pardon me—now I fully believe you.

[_Embraces her._]

TEODORA. And before? No? [_The actress must strongly accentuate this

line._]

MERCEDES. Hush! He is coming back.

TEODORA. [_Impetuously._] I will not see him. Tell him so. Julian

expects me. [_Goes to the right._]

MERCEDES. [_Detaining her._] Impossible! You must know it. He will not

heed my orders, and now that I understand so fully how you feel for

him, I should be glad to have him suffer at your hands the contempt he

has already endured at mine.

TEODORA. Then leave me. [_Enter Ernest._]

ERNEST. Teodora!

MERCEDES. [_Aside to Teodora._] It is late, do your duty quickly.

[_Aloud to Ernest._] The command you heard a little while ago from me,

you will receive again from Teodora's lips, and she is the mistress of

this house.

TEODORA. [_In a low voice to Mercedes._] Don't go away.

MERCEDES. [_To Teodora._] Are you afraid?

TEODORA. I afraid! I am afraid of nothing. [_Makes a sign for her to go.

Exit Doña Mercedes on the right._]

SCENE VII

_Teodora and Ernest._

ERNEST. The command was—that I should go away. [_Pause. Both remain

silent without looking at each other._] And you? Are you going to

repeat it? [_Teodora nods, but still does not look at him._] Have no

fear, Teodora. I will respect and obey your order. [_Submissively._]

The others could not get me to obey them, little as they may like to

hear it [_harshly_], but nothing you could say, even though you wound

me—From you I will endure anything! [_Sadly._]

TEODORA. I wound you! No, Ernest, you cannot believe that—— [_Still does

not look at him, is half vexed and afraid._]

ERNEST. I do not believe it. [_Pause._]

TEODORA. Adieu. I wish you all happiness.

ERNEST. Adieu, Teodora. [_Remains waiting for a moment to see if she

will turn and offer him her hand. Then walks down the stage, turns

back again, and approaches her. Teodora shows that she feels his

movement, and is distressed, but continues to keep her face averted._]

If with my death at this very instant I could blot out all the misery

that lies to my account, not through any fault of mine, but through an

implacable fate, I should not now be standing here alive. You may

believe it on the word of an honourable man. No shadow of the past

would remain,—neither sighs nor pain to remember, nor that sorrowful

pallor of your face [_Teodora starts and glances at him in terror_],

nor the grieved fear of those eyes, nor sobs that tear the throat, nor

tears that line the cheek. [_Teodora sobs._]

TEODORA. [_Aside, moving further away._] Mercedes was right, and I,

blind and thoughtless that I was——

ERNEST. Bid me good-bye—once—for kindness's sake.

TEODORA. Good-bye! Yes; and I forgive you all the injury you have done

us.

ERNEST. I, Teodora!

TEODORA. Yes, you.

ERNEST. What a look! What a tone!

TEODORA. No more, Ernest, I beseech you.

ERNEST. What have I done to deserve——?

TEODORA. It is all over between us. Regard me as one who no longer

exists for you.

ERNEST. Is this contempt?

TEODORA. Go.

ERNEST. Go? in this way?

TEODORA. My husband is dying in there—and here I feel as if I too were

dying. [_Staggers back and clutches the arm-chair to keep from

falling._]

ERNEST. Teodora. [_Rushes forward to support her._]

TEODORA. [_Angrily drawing herself away._] Don't touch me. [_Pause._]

Ah, I breathe again more freely. [_Tries to walk, staggers again

weakly, and a second time Ernest offers to assist her. She repulses

him._]

ERNEST. Why not, Teodora?

TEODORA. Your touch would soil me.

ERNEST. I soil you!

TEODORA. Exactly.

ERNEST. I! [_Pause._] What does she mean, Almighty God! She also! Oh, it

is not possible! Oh, death is preferable to this—It cannot be true—I

am raving—Say it is not true, Teodora—only one word—for justice—one

word of pardon, of pity, of consolation, madam. I am resigned to go

away, never to see you again, although 'twere to break, and mutilate,

and destroy my life. But it will, at least, be bearable if I may carry

into solitude your forgiveness, your affection, your esteem—only your

pity, then. So that I still may think you believe me loyal and

upright—that I could not, that I have not degraded you, much less be

capable of insulting you. I care nothing about the world, and despise

its affronts. Its passions inspire me with the profoundest disdain.

Whether its mood be harsh or cruel, however it may talk of me and of

what has happened, it will never think so ill of me as I do of it. But

you, the purest dream of man's imagining—you for whom I would gladly

give,—not only my life, but my right to heaven, ay, a thousand

times—eagerly, joyously,—You, to suspect me of treason, of hypocrisy!

Oh, this, Teodora—I cannot bear! [_Deeply moved, speaks

despairingly._]

TEODORA. [_With increasing nervousness._] You have not understood me,

Ernest. We must part.

ERNEST. But not like this!

TEODORA. Quickly, for mercy's sake. Julian suffers. [_Points to the

sick-room._]

ERNEST. I know it.

TEODORA. Then we should not forget it.

ERNEST. No; but I also suffer.

TEODORA. You, Ernest! why?

ERNEST. Through your contempt.

TEODORA. I feel none.

ERNEST. You have expressed it

TEODORA. It was a lie.

ERNEST. No; not entirely. So that our sufferings are not equal. In this

implacable strife _he_ suffers as those on earth suffer, _I_ as those

in hell.

TEODORA. Spare me, Ernest—my head is on fire.

ERNEST. And my heart aches.

TEODORA. That will do, Ernest. I entreat you to pity me.

ERNEST. That was all I asked of you.

TEODORA. Mercy.

ERNEST. Yes, mercy. But why should you claim it? What is it you fear? of

what are you thinking? [_Approaches her._]

TEODORA. Forgive me if I have offended you.

ERNEST. Offended me, no! The truth, that is what I crave,—and I implore

it on my knees. See, Teodora, my eyes are wet. [_Bends his knee before

her and takes her hand. Don Julian's door opens, and Don Severo stands

staring at them._]

D. SEVERO. [_Aside._] Miserable pair!

TEODORA. Don Severo!

SCENE VIII

_Teodora, Ernest, and Don Severo. Ernest stands apart on the right. Don

Severo places himself between him and Teodora._

D. SEVERO. [_In a low voice of concentrated anger, so that Don Julian

may not hear._] I can find no word or epithet adequate to the passion

of contempt I would express, so I must be content to call you a

blackguard. Leave this house at once.

ERNEST. [_Also in a low voice._] My respect for Teodora, for this house,

and for the sick man lying in yonder room, sir, compels me to put my

retort—in silence.

D. SEVERO. [_Ironically, under the impression that Ernest is going._]

It's the best thing you can do—obey and hold your tongue.

ERNEST. You have not understood me. I do not intend to obey.

SEVERO. You remain?

ERNEST. Until Teodora commands me to go. I was on the point of going

away for ever a moment ago, but the Almighty or the devil deterred me.

Now you come and order me out, and as if your insult were an infernal

message, it roots my heels to the floor in revolt.

SEVERO. We'll see that. There are servants to kick you out, and sticks

if necessary.

ERNEST. Try it. [_Approaches Don Severo with a threatening air. Teodora

rushes between them._]

TEODORA. Ernest! [_Turns commandingly to Don Severo._] You seem to

forget that this is my house as long as my husband lives and is its

owner. Only one of us two has the right to command here. [_Softens to

Ernest._] Not for him—but for my sake, because I am unhappy——

ERNEST. [_Unable to contain his joy at hearing himself defended by

Teodora._] You wish it, Teodora?

TEODORA. I beg it. [_Ernest bows and turns away._]

SEVERO. Your audacity confounds and shocks me as much—no, far more, than

his. [_Strides menacingly towards her. Ernest turns swiftly round,

then makes a strong effort to control himself and moves away again._]

You dare to raise your head, wretched woman, and before me too! Shame

on you! [_Ernest repeats previous movements and gestures, but this

time more accentuated._] You, so fearful and cowardly, where have you

found courage to display this energy in his defence? How eloquent is

passion! [_Ernest stands, looking back._] But you forget that, before

pitching him out, I had the authority to forbid the door of this house

to you, who have stained its threshold with Julian's blood. Why have

you returned? [_Seizes her brutally and drags her roughly toward

himself._]

ERNEST. No, I can't stand this—I cannot! [_He thrusts himself between

Severo and Teodora._] Off, you scoundrel.

SEVERO. Again!

ERNEST. Again.

SEVERO. You have dared to return?

ERNEST. You insolently affront Teodora. I still live. What do you expect

me to do, if not return and chastise you, and brand you as a coward?

SEVERO. Me?

ERNEST. Precisely.

TEODORA. No!

ERNEST. He has brought it on himself. I have seen him lift his hand in

anger to you—you, you! So now—— [_Seizes Don Severo violently._]

SEVERO. You impudent puppy!

ERNEST. True, but I'll not release you. You loved and respected your

mother, I presume. For that reason you must respect Teodora, and

humbly bow before a sorrow so immense as hers. This woman, sir, is

purer, more honest than the mother of such a man as you.

SEVERO. This to me?

ERNEST. Yes, and I have not yet done.

SEVERO. Your life——

ERNEST. Oh, my life, as much as you like—but afterwards. [_Teodora

endeavours to part them, but he pushes her gently away, without

releasing Don Severo._] You believe in a God—in a Maker—in hope. Well,

then, as you bend your knee before the altar of that God above, so

will I compel you to kneel to Teodora,—and that instantly, sir.

Down—in the dust.

TEODORA. For mercy's sake——

ERNEST. To the ground! [_Forces Don Severo to kneel._]

TEODORA. Enough, Ernest.

SEVERO. A thousand thunders.

ERNEST. At her feet!

SEVERO. You!

ERNEST. Yes, I.

SEVERO. For her?

ERNEST. For her.

TEODORA. That will do. Hush! [_She points in terror to Don Julian's

door. Ernest releases Don Severo, who rises and moves backward.

Teodora retreats and forms with Ernest a group in the background._]

SCENE IX

_Teodora, Ernest, Don Severo. Afterwards Don Julian

and Doña Mercedes._

D. JULIAN. [_Inside._] Let me go.

MERCEDES. [_Inside._] No. You must not.

D. JULIAN. It is they. Don't you hear them?

TEODORA. [_To Ernest._] Go.

SEVERO. [_To Ernest._] Avenged!

ERNEST. I don't deny it. [_Enter Don Julian, pale and dying, leaning on

Doña Mercedes' arm. Don Severo stations himself on the right, Ernest

and Teodora remain in the background._]

D. JULIAN. Together! Where are they going? Who detains them here? Away

with you, traitors. [_Wants to rush at them, but strength fails him,

and he staggers back._]

SEVERO. [_Hurrying to his assistance._] No, no.

D. JULIAN. Severo, they deceived me—they lied to me—the miserable pair!

[_While he speaks Don Severo and Doña Mercedes lead him to the

arm-chair._] There, look at them—both—she and Ernest! Why are they

together?

TEODORA AND ERNEST. [_Separating._] No.

D. JULIAN. Why don't they come to me? Teodora!

TEODORA. [_Stretches out her arms but does not advance._] Julian!

D. JULIAN. Here in my arms. [_Teodora runs forward and flings herself

into Don Julian's arms, who clasps her feverishly. Pause._] You

see—you see—[_to Don Severo_] I know well enough they are deceiving

me. I hold her thus in my arms. I crush and subdue her—I might kill

her—so! and 'tis only what she deserves. But I look at her—_I look at

her_—and then I cannot!

TEODORA. Julian——

D. JULIAN. [_Pointing to Ernest._] And that fellow?

ERNEST. Sir!

D. JULIAN. I loved him! Silence, and come hither. [_Ernest approaches._]

You see, I am still her owner. [_He holds Teodora more tightly

clasped._]

TEODORA. Yes,—I am yours.

D. JULIAN. Drop pretence. Don't lie.

MERCEDES. [_Striving to soothe him._] For pity's sake——

D. SEVERO. Julian!

D. JULIAN. [_To both._] Peace. [_To Teodora._] I see through you. I know

well that you love him. [_Teodora and Ernest try to protest, but he

will not let them._] All Madrid knows it too—all Madrid.

ERNEST. No, father.

TEODORA. No.

D. JULIAN. They deny it—they deny it! Why, it is as clear as noonday.

Why, I feel it in every fibre,—by the beat of fevered pulse, by the

consuming flame of inward illumination!

ERNEST. It is the fever of your blood and the delirium of bodily

weakness that feed the delusion. Listen to me, sir——

D. JULIAN. To hear how well you can lie?

ERNEST. [_Pointing to Teodora._] She is innocent.

D. JULIAN. But I do not believe you.

ERNEST. Sir, by my father's memory——

D. JULIAN. Don't insult his name and memory.

ERNEST. By my mother's last kiss——

D. JULIAN. That kiss has long since been wiped from your brow.

ERNEST. What then do you want, father? I will swear by anything you

wish. Oh, my father!

D. JULIAN. No oaths, or protests, or deceitful words.

ERNEST. Then what? Only tell me.

TEODORA. Yes, what, Julian?

D. JULIAN. Deeds.

ERNEST. What does he wish, Teodora? What does he ask of us?

TEODORA. I don't know. Oh, what are we to do, Ernest?

D. JULIAN. [_Watching them in feverish distrust._] Ah, you would even

deceive me to my face! You are plotting together, wretched traitors! I

see it.

ERNEST. It is fever that misleads you—not the testimony of your eyes.

D. JULIAN. Fever, yes. And since fever is fire, it has burnt away the

bandage with which before you two had blinded me, and at last I see

you for what you are. And now!—but why these glances at one another?

Why, traitors? Why do your eyes gleam so? Tell me, Ernest. There are

no tears in them to make them shine. Come nearer—nearer to me. [_Draws

Ernest to him, bends his head, and then succeeds in thrusting him upon

his knees. Thus Teodora is on one side of Don Julian and Ernest at his

feet. Don Julian passes his hand across the young man's eyes._] You

see—no tears—they are quite dry.

ERNEST. Forgive me, forgive me!

D. JULIAN. You ask my forgiveness? Then you acknowledge your sin?

ERNEST. No.

D. JULIAN. Yes.

ERNEST. I say it is not so.

D. JULIAN. Then here before me, look at her.

D. SEVERO. Julian!

MERCEDES. Sir!

D. JULIAN. [_To Teodora and Ernest._] Perhaps you are afraid? So it is

not like a brother that you cherish her? If so, prove it. Let me see

what sort of light shines in your eyes as they meet—whether, to my

close inspection, the rays dart passion's flame, or mild affection.

Come here, Teodora. Both—so—still nearer. [_Drags Teodora until she

stumbles, so that both faces are compelled towards each other._]

TEODORA. [_Frees herself with a violent effort._] Oh, no.

ERNEST. [_Also strives to free himself, but is held in Don Julian's

grasp._] I cannot.

D. JULIAN. You love one another—you can't deny it, for I've seen it.

[_To Ernest._] Your life!

ERNEST. Yes.

D. JULIAN. Your blood!

ERNEST. All.

D. JULIAN. [_Forcing him to his knees._] Stay still.

TEODORA. Julian!

D. JULIAN. Ah, you defend him, you defend him.

TEODORA. Not for his sake.

D. SEVERO. In God's name——

D. JULIAN. [_To Severo._] Silence. [_Still holds Ernest down._] Bad

friend, bad son!

ERNEST. My father.

D. JULIAN. Disloyal! Traitor!

ERNEST. No, father.

D. JULIAN. Here is my shameful seal upon your cheek—To-day with my

hand—soon with steel—so! [_With a supreme effort strikes Ernest.

Ernest jumps up with a terrible cry, and turns away, covering his

face._]

ERNEST. Oh!

D. SEVERO. [_Stretches out his hand to Ernest._] Justice.

TEODORA. My God! [_Hides her face in both hands, and drops on a chair._]

MERCEDES. [_Turning to Ernest to exculpate Don Julian._] It was only

delirium.

[_These four exclamations very hurried. A moment of stupor. Don Julian

stands still staring at Ernest, and Doña Mercedes and Don Severo

endeavour to calm him._]

D. JULIAN. It was not delirium, it was chastisement, Heaven be praised.

What did you think, ungrateful boy?

MERCEDES. That will do.

D. SEVERO. Come, Julian.

D. JULIAN Yes, I am going. [_Is led away with difficulty between Don

Severo and Dona Mercedes, and stops to look back at Teodora and

Ernest._]

MERCEDES. Quickly, Severo.

D. JULIAN. Look at them, the traitors! It was only justice—was it not?

Say so—at least I believe it.

D. SEVERO. For God's sake, Julian—well, at any rate, for _mine_——

D. JULIAN. Yes, for yours, Severo, only for yours. You alone have loved

me truly. [_Embraces him._]

D. SEVERO. Yes, yes, it is so.

D. JULIAN. [_Stops at the door and looks back again._] She is crying for

him—and does not follow me. Not even a look. She does not see that I

am dying—yes, dying.

D. SEVERO. Julian, Julian!

D. JULIAN. [_On the threshold._] Wait, wait. Dishonour for dishonour.

Good-bye, Ernest.

[_Exeunt Don Julian, Don Severo, and Mercedes._]

SCENE X

_Teodora and Ernest. Ernest drops into a chair near the

table. Teodora remains standing on the right. Pause._

ERNEST. [_Aside._] What is the use of loyalty?

TEODORA. And what is the use of innocence?

ERNEST. Conscience grows dark.

TEODORA. Pity, my God! Pity!

ERNEST. Pitiless destiny.

TEODORA. Oh, most miserable fate!

ERNEST. Poor child!

TEODORA. Poor Ernest! [_Both remain apart until now._]

D. SEVERO. [_In anguish from within._] My brother.

MERCEDES. Help!

PEPITO. Quickly. [_Ernest and Teodora move together._]

TEODORA. They are crying.

ERNEST. He is dying.

TEODORA. Come at once.

ERNEST. Where?

TEODORA. To him.

ERNEST. We cannot. [_Detains her._]

TEODORA. Why not? I want him to live.

ERNEST. And I!—but I cannot. [_Points to Don Julian's room._]

TEODORA. Then I will. [_Rushes to the door._]

LAST SCENE

_Teodora, Ernest, Don Severo and Pepito. Ernest stands on the right in

the middle of the stage, Teodora near the door of Don Julian's room.

Pepito and, behind him, Don Severo, bar the way._

PEPITO. Where are you going?

TEODORA. [_In desperation._] I must see him.

PEPITO. It is impossible.

D. SEVERO. She cannot pass. This woman must not remain in my house—turn

her out at once. [_To Pepito._] No compassion—this very moment.

ERNEST. What!

TEODORA. My mind is wandering.

D. SEVERO. Though your mother should stand in front of that woman,

Pepito, you have my orders. Obey them. Never mind her prayers or

supplications. If she should cry—then let her cry. [_With concentrated

fury._] Away with her, away—else I might kill her.

TEODORA. Julian orders——

D. SEVERO. Yes, Julian.

ERNEST. Her husband! It cannot be.

TEODORA. I must see him.

D. SEVERO. Very well. Look at him, once more—and then—depart.

PEPITO. [_Interfering._] Father——

D. SEVERO. [_Pushing him away._] Stop, sir.

TEODORA. It can't be true.

PEPITO. This is too horrible.

TEODORA. It is a lie.

D. SEVERO. Come, Teodora—come and see. [_Seizes her arm and leads her to

the door._]

TEODORA. Oh! My husband! Julian—dead. [_Staggers shudderingly back, and

falls half senseless._]

ERNEST. [_Covering his face._] My father! [_Pause. Don Severo watches

them rancorously._]

D. SEVERO. [_To his son._] Turn her out.

ERNEST. [_Placing himself before Teodora._] What cruelty!

PEPITO. [_Doubting._] Sir——

SEVERO. [_To Pepito._] Such are my orders. Do you doubt my word?

ERNEST. Pity.

D. SEVERO. [_Pointing to the death-chamber._] Yes, such pity as she

showed him.

ERNEST. Fire races through my veins. I will leave Spain, sir.

D. SEVERO. It makes no difference.

ERNEST. She will die.

D. SEVERO. Life is short.

ERNEST. For the last time——

D. SEVERO. No more. [_To his son._] Ring.

ERNEST. But I tell you she is innocent. I swear it.

PEPITO. [_Interceding._] Father——

D. SEVERO. [_With a contemptuous gesture._] That fellow lies.

ERNEST. You impel me with the current. Then I will not struggle against

it. I go with it. I cannot yet know what may be her opinion [_pointing

to Teodora_] of others, and of your outrages. Her lips are silent,

mute her thoughts. But what I think of it all—yes, I will tell you.

D. SEVERO. It is useless. It won't prevent me from—— [_Approaches

Teodora._]

PEPITO. [_Restraining him._] Father——

ERNEST. Stay. [_Pause._] Let nobody touch this woman. She is mine. The

world has so desired it, and its decision I accept. It has driven her

to my arms. Come, Teodora. [_He raises her, and sustains her._] You

cast her forth from here. We obey you.

D. SEVERO. At last, you blackguard!

ERNEST. Yes; now you are right. I will confess now. Do you want passion?

Then passion and delirium. Do you want love? Then love—boundless love.

Do you want more? Then more and more. Nothing daunts me. Yours the

invention, I give it shelter. So you may tell the tale. It echoes

through all this heroic town. But should any one ask you who was the

infamous intermediary in this infamy, you will reply 'ourselves,

without being aware of it, and with us the stupid chatter of

busybodies.' Come, Teodora; my mother's spirit kisses your pure brow.

Adieu, all. She belongs to me, and let heaven choose its day to judge

between you and me. [_Gathers Teodora into his embrace, with a glance

of defiance around._]

CURTAIN

FINIS

FOLLY OR SAINTLINESS

A PLAY IN THREE ACTS

PERSONS OF THE DRAMA

DON LORENZO DE AVENDAÑA.

ÁNGELA, His Wife.

INÉS, Daughter of Both.

THE DUCHESS OF ALMONTE.

EDWARD, Her Son.

JUANA.

DR. TOMÁS.

DR. BERMÚDEZ.

BRAULIO.

BENITO.

SERVANT.

------------------

_Scenes of the Play take place in the study of

Don Lorenzo's house in Madrid._

------------------------------------------------------------------------

ACT I

SCENE—_Don Lorenzo's study, octagon form. Fire lighting, over

mantel-piece a large mirror in black frame L. Below, a door. Door and

window R. Principal entrance in background. Book-shelves well filled R

and L. Writing-desk and arm-chair L, sofa R. Scattered about in

orderly confusion books and objects of art. Mounting severe and rich.

A winter afternoon._

SCENE I

DON LORENZO. [_Seated at table reading attentively._] 'Mercy, my niece,'

replied Don Quixote, 'is that which God this moment has shown me,

despite my sins. Already my mind is clear and free, unclogged of the

obscurities of ignorance, which my unhappy and incessant readings of

those detestable books of chivalry cast upon me like a heavy shadow.

Already have I sounded the depth of their delusions and absurdities,

and I now regret nothing but that this awakening should have come so

late that I have no longer time to seek compensation in reading those

other books which are the light of the soul. I feel myself on the

point of death, dear niece. I should like to depart in such a way that

my life would not appear so evil as to obtain for me the reputation of

madness; that, though it is true I have been mad, my death should not

confirm its truth.' [_Stops reading, and remains a while in thought._]

Folly! To struggle without truce or rest in this fierce battle of life

for justice as Cervantes' immortal hero struggled in the world of his

imagining! Folly! To love with an infinite love, and with the divine

beauty of our desire ever beyond our reach, as was the Dulcinea he so

passionately loved! Folly! To walk with the soul ever fronting the

ideal, along the rough and prosaic path of human realities, which is

like running after one of heaven's stars through crags and rocky

places. Folly! Yes, so the doctors tell us; but of so inoffensive a

form, and, upon the face of it, so little likely to prove contagious,

that, to make an end of it, we do not need another Quixote. [_Pause.

Rises and walks to the middle of the stage, where he stands

thinking._]