José Echegaray

“ Don Lorenzo. A name, Ángela, in social life is——
Doña Ángela. A name is but a sound, a passing breath of air, something vain and evanescent. But a child, Lorenzo, is a creature made of our own flesh and of the blood in our veins: a creature that, while still nothing, we shelter warm in our bosom, and receive into our arms upon its first cry; that gives us its first smile and its first kiss; that lives by our life, and is at once our sweetest joy and our sharpest sorrow: a creature we love more than ourselves, but without a taste of that selfish leaven which degrades all our other loves ”

“ 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. ”

“ If Juana be your mother, all this has she done, and has persisted in the deception for forty years.
Don Lorenzo. [Moves away and grasps his head in both hands.] Silence, for God Almighty's sake, silence!
Doña Ángela. That is just what I am begging of you—silence!
Don Lorenzo. She is my mother.
Doña Ángela. What of that? He who can injure an innocent daughter need not trouble himself to respect a culpable mother. Is not divine law above human law? Is not justice first?—Justice, duty, and truth? Must not the command of the spirit ever triumph over the weaknesses of the flesh? ”

“ And though there is not a death, not a blow struck from beginning to end of the Spanish drama, such plays, with all their accumulations of misery and ferocity, might be found to yield in the element of sheer horror to the spectacle of the brilliant Lazarus, the poet, the dramatist, the coming glory of Spain, waking from a trance under the anguished eyes of his father, his mother, his betrothed, and bursting into the ravings of a hopeless madman. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Doña Ángela. Why not speak to the duchess? They say she is a kind woman, apart from her aristocratic pretensions, and that she idolises Edward. Let us go to her, and beseech and implore her.
Don Lorenzo. I beseech! I implore! Humiliate myself! It is certainly not my place to entreat for her son's hand. She it is who should come to my house and beg for that of my daughter. Social convention, the respect of woman, and my own honour ordain it so.
Doña Ángela. Here you see the philosopher, the sage, the perfect man overflowing with vanity and pride. ”

“ That there was something hidden in the locket a vigilance so alert as mine had easily discovered, and what the paper contained misgiving helped me to divine. That was why I took the locket. It was mine by right. It had cost me twenty years of tears and anguish, than which none more bitter or intolerable have ever been shed.
Don Lorenzo. Forgiveness, remorse, a secret—and my mother! I cannot imagine what you would say. Confused shades gather and drift before my mind, and pain strikes my heart in lightning flashes. You are raving, and you make me rave too.
Juana. No, no. ”

“ 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.] ”

“ A generation devoured by vice; which bears even in its bones the virus engendered by impure love; with a corrupted blood which in its course drags along organisms of corruption mingled with its ruddy globules, this generation goes on falling and falling into the abysses of idiocy: the cry of Lazarus is the last twilight of a reason which founders in the eternal blackness of imbecility. And at the same time nature awakes and the sun comes forth—another twilight which will very soon be all light. ”

“ 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! ”

“ I must tell the truth, the whole truth, in a loud voice, happen what will.
Doña Ángela. Lorenzo!
Don Lorenzo. Would a judge and a tribunal sentence me to despoilment of my goods alone, or to despoilment of both my goods and my name? Of everything, everything—is it not so? Then what a judge would decide I have to do myself—my own judge—or I am a wretched fellow. Such, my poor wife, is what my conscience ordains me to do. I want no half-hearted view of honesty, for there is no middle term between clean honour and complete abasement. All this is quite clear to me. Nothing so clear as duty. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Will you have it so, Bermudez?
Berm. I am at your orders—and if Lazarus insists——
Laz. No more—no more—enter—here—and in all freedom. Your little cabinet—the balcony open—the flowers of that terrace which are beginning to take colour—the Guadalquivir which commences to waken with its silver lights. Very good—very good—you are going to be perfectly comfortable—and all this will incline you to good nature. Don’t be very cruel—don’t fix too long a term—for in this world, what is not to-day is never. ”

“ Inés. Why not? If I do not die of sorrow—should fortune ever again smile upon me, then must I die of remorse.
Don Lorenzo. [Aside.] Of remorse! She! Should fortune ever again smile upon her! What worse fate floats in the air and hangs threateningly above my head? Remorse!—I have again caught another passing word. I traverse rooms and galleries, and wander from one place to another, pricked by insufferable anguish. I hear talk that I do not understand, and meet glances still further from my comprehension. I see tears here, smiles there, and nobody opposes me,—all either fly from me or watch me. ”

“ What is this worse pallor, these sadder tears, and still mournfuller tragedies?
Don Lorenzo. [Seizing his arm.] Madman! The pallor of crime, the tears of remorse, the consciousness of one's own infamy.
Edward. And this infamy, this remorse, this crime would lie in furthering your daughter's happiness?
Don Lorenzo. [Despairingly.] It should not be—but so it is nevertheless. [Pause.] And this makes my torment. This is the idea that will drive me mad.
Inés. No, no, father. You must not say that. Do what you think best without thought of me. What does it matter whether I live or die? ”

“ I know that nothing is the matter with me; but I want a specialist to assure me on the point. And then, with mind at peace—to my drama, to my critico-historical work, to my æsthetic theories which are new, completely new—and to Carmen. And with the muse at one side, recounting marvels in my ear, and with Carmen on the other side, pressed against my heart—to enjoy life, to inhale the odour of triumphs, to live for love, to satiate my longings amidst eternal mysteries.
Juan. Stupendous! Monumental! Sufficient to make one die of laughing. Lord, why does a man read? ”

“ 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. ”

“ It is not honourable to us to go a-begging on Inés' behalf the ducal coronet another family chooses to withhold from her—she who wears herself a far fairer crown. I repeat, it would not be to our credit to go from door to door, still less to emblazoned doors, with hands held out for the alms of a name, when Inés bears my name, as good, as untarnished and honourable as any other, however great it may be.
Dr. Tomás. Lorenzo is right—you, too, madam, are right.
Doña Ángela. Never mind, you need not go. Preserve intact your dignity of sage and philosopher. I who am only a poor mother will go. ”

“ Doña Ángela. I know nothing about it. I feel, I can't argue.
Don Lorenzo. My whole soul rises up in revolt against the idea. To become an accomplice in the most repugnant, because most cowardly, of crimes! To enjoy usurped wealth and a name I have no right to, and all that is not ours! God has not willed it so, and what he has not willed should not be. Inés, you and I, all sunk in the mire! ”

“ 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. ”

“ The duchess!
Don Lorenzo. [Angrily, while Juana tears paper from him, and conceals it.] Again! leave me alone. What do you want?
Doña Ángela. Lorenzo, Lorenzo.
Edward. [Rushes in.] Don Lorenzo!
Don Lorenzo. You, also—go away, go all of you.
Doña Ángela. Mercy upon us, what is this? What can it mean? What is the matter with you, Lorenzo? do be sensible.
Don Lorenzo. Away, away! I implore, if needs be I am ready to kneel to you, but only leave me. Oh, human selfishness! They think there is nothing else besides their passions and interests. Tomás, Ángela, Edward, the duchess—all of them. ”

“ Doña Ángela. And why? You seem already to be growing as ordinary and weak as any poor mother. Does duty not order you to let your daughter die? Then let her die. Does it not also command you to cast the dying Juana into a prison-cell? Then hasten to procure her condemnation. You see, Lorenzo, I have some logic too, in my own way.
Don Lorenzo. Infernal logic.
Doña Ángela. And yours? From what sublime sphere does it descend?
Don Lorenzo. [Moves still further off.] Let me be, let me be. I can stand no more. My own Inés—and my mother! ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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? ”

“ Inés. And you also, mother, you also. [Embraces Doña Ángela. Don Lorenzo and Dr. Tomás move away from sofa, where Doña Ángela and Inés remain seated, and come to the middle of the stage.]
Dr. Tomás. Poor philosopher! Neither of those two has read a single page of all your books, and both know more than you do. You think yourself strong, and in their hands you are as soft as wax. You think yourself a sage, and in their arms you are an innocent, not to say a fool. You think yourself just and uncorruptible, and upon the will of those two women you could be led into any injustice or weakness. ”

“ Don Lorenzo. Tomás!
Doña Ángela. You really believe——
Dr. Tomás. I believe that Inés has inherited her father's excitable and fantastical imagination. To-day the fever of love runs like a fiery wave in her veins. If you don't marry her to Edward,—and that very soon—and she should be given to understand that her hopes are not destined to be realised, though I cannot predict in what way, I unhappily know that the delirium of fantasy, and the violence of her affection will eventually kill her. ”

“ To-day, no less a madman, I send you the last. [Kisses his hand to her with cry and expression of desperate grief.]
Doña Ángela. Lorenzo!
Don Lorenzo. Don't come near me. I might strangle you in my arms. [Ángela recoils.] Farewell, Inés, my only child. Be happy—if you can. To you I say nothing. I could not speak to you unkindly. [Walks a few steps feebly, then stops. Repulses roughly those who rush to his assistance.] Let me be. I require no one. My brow is damp with sweat, and thirst is upon my dry lips, and a fiery heat seems to swell my eyelids. ”

“ Don Lorenzo. At the cost of my honour.
Duchess. Not so, Inés. In exchange for silence.
Inés. Don't you hear her, father?
Don Lorenzo. [Moving away and repulsing her.] I only hear voices begging my conscience of me. I only see shadows pursuing me through the shadows—phantasms 160of space, engendered by temptation. Leave me, leave me—in God's name. If you are strong enough to wring my heart, at least you are not strong enough to bend my will.
Juana. His voice! Lorenzo, Lorenzo! [Comes over to embrace him.]
Don Lorenzo. Mother! [Embraces her.]
Inés. [Taking refuge behind Doña Ángela.] ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”