José Echegaray

“ 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. ”

“ 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? ”

“ You watch over our love—the love of Lazarus and myself. I am sure you tell Lazarus that I am this and that—in short, a prodigy. And you swear to me that Lazarus is mad for the love of his Carmen. But is all this true? Can it be so? Am I worthy of Lazarus? Can such a man as he feel the passion which you describe to me for a poor creature like myself? ”

“ Jump into the street, and you won’t see a neighbour who is not the son of somebody. Each individual has a father.
Nem. One father at least.
Juan. Yes, but I was the libertine; I was the man that drained the cup of pleasure and the cask from the wine-cellar: the invalid of the orgie. “That fellow is consumptive,” they used to say. “That fellow will die some morning,” you thought. And suddenly I became restored to life in Lazarus. Lazarus is my resurrection. And how robust and strong he is. And what talent he has! A prodigy—a Byron, an Espronceda, an Edgar Poe—a genius. ”

“ Take a glass, Paca, and give me another, and let us drink as we did a short time ago.
Dol. Lazarus!
Paca. Señorito, I drank a great deal, and now I don’t know—now, my head is——
Laz. Yes, I insist on it—you and I.
Juan. Good God! No.
Laz. Why not? Ah, you egoist, that have your own enjoyment and don’t wish others to enjoy themselves. Well, I too wish to enjoy myself. My life is drawing to a close, and I must take advantage of that! Drink, Tarifeña, drink, and laugh, and dance, and twirl about. ”

“ Lazarus has risen, and now he will never sleep any more. These eyes are very wide open to see everything (tenderly) : the dear little head of my Carmen (laughing) , the great, villainous head of Don Timoteo. To see the day with its splendour and the night with its gloom. (Going to the balcony.) How beautiful is the morning star—is it not? It is always there. We seem to have made an appointment with each other. “I shall appear in heaven,” she says, “and do you appear at the balcony, and we shall gaze upon each other.” I cannot gaze upon you, forgive me; Carmen would be jealous. ”

“ But we are not all as Doctor Bermudez? (Grasping his hand.)
Berm. I respect your delicacy: but science is implacable. A father who has consumed his life in vice——
Lazarus retreats in his chair.
Who has wallowed with all the energies of his nature in the mire of riot, who has heated his blood in the embers of all impure fires—runs the danger of transmitting to his son nothing but the germs of death or the germs of madness! ”

“ Carmen alone remains with
Lazarus.
Dol. Bermudez, one hope! One hope!
Bermudez, followed by Dolores and Don Juan, approaches
Lazarus. Timoteo advances towards Carmen. Javier stands apart.
Tim. Come, Carmen; my daughter, come. It is getting late.
Car. No. With him; I’ll not leave him so.
Tim. It is necessary—for heaven’s sake, girl. (Separating her from Lazarus.)
Car. Lazarus, they are separating us.
Laz. (gathering himself together with a supreme effort.) Who? That old man! That scum of the earth! Away, scum, to your heap of refuse! I pass on to life! I pass on to love! Carmen, to my arms! ”

“ Lazarus suffers from vertigo—nervous attacks—what shall I say?—something of that sort. At long intervals, it’s true; but that head of his is not strong. That’s why he does such stupendous things, and that’s why they call him a genius. Don’t trust men of genius, Timoteo. A genius goes along the street, and every one says, “The genius! the genius!” He turns round the corner, and the little boys in the next street run after him shouting: “The madman! the madman!” Timoteo, it is very dangerous to have much cleverness. ”

“ Idiots are what they are from infancy. Nor do I say idiots only—fools have been fools all through life; there is nobody more consistent than a fool. But as to a man of genius! Oh! Genius! Tut, absurdities of doctors!{92} He to pronounce judgment on my Lazarus! He who can’t co-ordinate two ideas—on Lazarus, who is as familiar with the “finality without end” as he is with the Our Father! Come, answer. Am I right?
Dol. Would to God it might be so!
Juan. But don’t you think it is false—all that that buffoon has told us? ”

“ But even if I were the most beautiful woman in the world, could I be worthy of Lazarus? A man like him! A future such as his! A talent which all admire. Nay, a superior being. I love him much; but it makes me afraid and ashamed that he should know that I love him so much. ”

“ Well, Carmen, if you don’t wish to make me angry, you will not talk such folly. A good woman is worth more than all the learned men of all the Academies. And if, as well as being good, she is pretty, then—then there’s an end, there is no man who is worthy of her. Men, with the exception of Lazarus, are either mean-spirited wretches or heartless devils. ”

“ They say that life is dull, that it is mournful. Buffoons! Has anything better been discovered? Is it better to be stone which has no nerves to quiver with delight? Is it better to be water which always runs in headlong stupidity without knowing where it goes? Is it better to be air to blow without motive and to fill itself with the foulest earth and dust? No, it is better to be Lazarus. (Resumes the counting on his fingers.) For Lazarus has very good parents; he has Carmen; he has glory; he has life ”

“ I was thinking of Paca, I was gazing at the star, and I felt an insane, ridiculous, but unconquerable desire. It was to seize one of my foils, to run it through the gad-fly with her fringed mantle, as one runs an insect through with a pin, and to burn her at the light of that most beautiful star. Like what? The putrescence of humanity which is consumed and purified in heavenly flames. You don’t understand me, Don Timoteo?
Tim. Well, I don’t think there is much to understand—and even though a man may not be a genius——
Laz. Don’t be vexed: these are jokes: I offend you? The father of Carmen? ”

“ Below, human reason which has come to an end; above, the sun which begins a new day. “Give me the sun,” says Lazarus to his mother. Don Juan likewise asked for it from between the tresses of the woman of Tarifa. On this point there is much to be said: it gives room for much thought. For, in truth, if our society.... But what the devil are these philosophical speculations that I am plunging into? Let every man compose such for himself as best he may, and let him clamour for the sun or beg for the horns of the moon, or ask for what suits his appetite. ”

“ Exit Teresa.
Dolores opens the balcony.
So! Air—the air of night—space—freshness—that which is pure—that which is great—that which does not revolt one—that which dilates the lungs—that which expands the soul! To have a very broad horizon which one may fill with hopes, and to run towards those hopes! At least hope! Hope! Oh! I cannot complain. I have my Lazarus—then I have everything.
Car. (putting her head from time to time through the curtain) . May I come out? ”

“ The disorders of his youth have left him with none the strongest of brains. And now the sins of the parent, in accordance with Echegaray’s unsparing rule, are visited upon the child. The father’s own mental weakness is developed in the most grim and terrible form in the gifted son. And so the flames in which Don Juan Tenorio was untimely plunged, are rekindled in the hell of misery and remorse with which the heir to his shameless renown sees the final overthrow of his boy’s intellect. ”

“ Don’t I tell you that I am the man? Oh, have no fear: I am a man capable of looking face to face upon death, and of answering the grimace of madness with another grimace even more grotesque. While a heart remains to me, the head will obey. ”

“ He is very engaging, this young man. They were right in Madrid to say that he has plenty of ability.
Laz. You don’t deserve it? Ah! in the mouth of a celebrity like Doctor Bermudez, modesty will always have a voice, but it has no vote.
Berm. Señor de Mejia. (Aside.) How well he speaks!
Laz. Don’t treat me ceremoniously. I am not deserving of so much solemnity. “Señor de Mejia”! (Laughing.) Call me Lazarus. I really don’t deserve anything better; treat me as a master might a pupil. I dare not say as a kind friend would treat a respectful friend.
Berm. As you please. It will be an honour for me! ”

“ After a painful scene of reproach, at the end of which the traitor brother kills himself, the husband first throws the key which had locked them in, then the torch which had illumined the dismal magnificence of their surrounding’s, down a deep cavity which yawns between the monuments. Finally, in utter darkness, he stabs himself dead at his wife’s feet; and the curtain falls amidst an undefinable impression of haunting dismay at the alternatives of fate before the lonely survivor.
For obvious reasons Echegaray has been here referred to in connection with Ibsen. ”

“ The prescriptions of etiquette: social conventionalities: he was always a great stickler for etiquette. Because he must consult with Carmen. Imagine him consulting with Carmen! When the poor little thing is like a soul in purgatory, and you are her heaven.—Ha! ha!
Laz. You are right.
Juan. No: you shall have your sweet little wife, your home; you shall work hard, you shall gain great glory, you shall keep a sound judgment—and let the whole world say: Don Lazarus Mejia, son of Don Juan Mejia! Oh!
Laz. Yes, señor: I shall do what I can—and I shall love my Carmen dearly. ”

“ Goes out by the terrace.
Laz. (alone) . I feel more confident—I find the strength flowing into my arms. To defend Carmen I need much strength. Well, I have it now. Everything is dawning—everything is rising—everything is returning. Light on the horizon, life to my muscles, and Carmen to me. Lazarus is Lazarus. The moment has arrived for the struggle—for the supreme struggle. But here one cannot struggle. Everything is soft and yielding. The carpet soft, the divans soft, the East filled with gauze and tufts of cotton wool. ”

“ The introduction of death upon the stage seems invariably a matter of concern to him. Not that it is ever awkwardly shrunk from. Indeed, when used as a last resort,{18} when “fear has had laid upon it as much as it can bear,” “when life is weaned and wearied till it is ready to drop,” then death in the hands of Echegaray comes forward at times with the weight of an almost overwhelming consummation. The Spanish dramatist, in short, may fairly claim a portion of that pleasing reverence for the dead which all true artists have. ”

“ William Archer himself might not be reluctant to admit the essential originality of the Spanish play. The truth is that “El Hijo de Don Juan” is a sombre and relentless satire upon the real national hero of Spain, the being immortalised by Molière and Mozart, and more or less caricatured in the cruder imagination of José Zorilla. Don Juan, the gamester, the libertine, the duellist, the bully, has been transported from the sixteenth century to the nineteenth. He is in entirely new surroundings and has become in a measure reformed. ”

“ The mathematical rigidity and angularity of much of his poetry, say these enemies, is not compensated for{9} even by the daring originality of his conceptions, his nobility of sentiment, the richness of his imagery, the splendour of his language; they deny to him, for instance, the exquisite ease and melody of Espronceda, the bird-like spontaneity and perhaps fatal fluency of José Zorilla. In short, during these days of his dawning manhood, Echegaray had never dreamed of being a poet, still less a dramatic genius. ”

“ Berm. Ah! the springs of life cannot be corrupted with impunity. The Son of that father will very soon sink into madness or into idiocy. A madman or an idiot: such is his fate!{83}
(He says this without looking round, with solemnity,
like one who pronounces a sentence: gazing forward and motioning with his arm
towards Lazarus. The latter cowers in his chair and looks at
Bermudez with horror.)
Laz. Ah! No! What? My father! I! A lie! A lie! It is a lie! (Hides his face in his hands.)
Berm. What’s this? Lazarus! Señor de Mejia! Are you ill? What do you say? (Rising and approaching Lazarus.) ”

“ From the first he displayed that passion for mathematics which has never grown cool in him throughout life. His interest in literature itself was far from absorbing. He showed, indeed, some liking for novels and romantic dramas. For tragic writers of the stamp of Corneille and Racine he could not conceal his disrelish, though the fairness of his mind would never permit him to ignore or deny the many beauties of the classic drama. ”

“ I am now as it were on the boundaries of a desert; a desert contains much sand, which never ends; much solitude which is never filled; much thirst which is never quenched, and a sky which becomes flattened in the centre as if it were about to fall, and which never falls. ”

“ I love my father so much, I respect him so much, that those words which you have uttered have caused me much pain, much pain. A weakness I confess; a man of science does not know those weaknesses; but we poets are thus. You—you raise yourselves above the level of human miseries. ”

“ Paca. Old men never wish young people to be married; old men are great scoundrels. Old women are quite the contrary; we old women would like everybody to get married. Why, what does the human race exist for? To get marred; exactly. And you and beautiful little Carmen will make such a pair!
Laz. You are very kind, very tender-hearted; you don’t wish any one to suffer pain. Take this (gives her another cup) ——
Paca. Ah! yes, señorito, although it doesn’t become me to talk about my being tender-hearted, I never harmed any one. ”

“ And the two twilights meet and cross and salute each other with the salutation of everlasting farewell at the close of the drama.{27} Reason, which is precipitated downward, impelled by the corruption of pleasure. The sun, which springs upward with immortal flames, impelled by the sublime forces of nature. ”

“ Does it not come to this that you are the father of a genius?
Juan. And what then, dotards? Strength is strength, and becomes transformed: you don’t understand this. I make no doubt that I had all the genius of Lazarus concealed in some corner of my brain ”