SCENE IV

_Doña Ángela, Don Lorenzo, enters door L._

DON LORENZO. My mother dying—and yonder that other morsel of my soul! What can I do, my God? [_Walks slowly toward door R. and meets Doña Ángela._]

DOÑA ÁNGELA. Where are you going, Lorenzo?

DON LORENZO. To see my daughter.

DOÑA ÁNGELA. Impossible. She has recovered consciousness now, and your presence might again upset her, since you it was who caused her illness.

DON LORENZO. But I wish to see her.

DOÑA ÁNGELA. You cannot. With you duty is always imperative, so you will respect that unhappy girl's grieving solitude [_ironically_], not upon the command of my will, which must always be second to yours, but upon that of your own reflective judgment.

DON LORENZO. You are right. [_Pause. Both are in middle of stage._] My own beloved daughter! What does she say of me?

DOÑA ÁNGELA. Nothing.

DON LORENZO. She does not blame me?

DOÑA ÁNGELA. I cannot answer for the murmurings of sorrow in her heart.

DON LORENZO. I to be her executioner! to destroy all her hopes! Can it be that I have broken her heart?

DOÑA ÁNGELA. You know full well what you have done, Lorenzo. So much the better, if remorse will now help you to repair your cruel work.

DON LORENZO. I am indeed miserable.

DOÑA ÁNGELA. You miserable! Inés it is who is miserable, not you, who doubtless find assured ineffable joy and divine consolation in contemplating your own moral perfection. [_Ironically._]

DON LORENZO. How ill you judge me, and how little you understand me!

DOÑA ÁNGELA. I judge you ill, and yet humbly admire the fruit of your sainthood! That I do not understand you, I admit, for superior beings such as you are not within reach of so mediocre an intelligence as mine.

DON LORENZO. Ángela, your words pierce my heart like a sharp dagger.

DOÑA ÁNGELA. Your heart! impossible.

DON LORENZO. But what would you have me do? Speak, advise, decide—bring light to a mind that gropes among shadows.

DOÑA ÁNGELA. What would I have you do? Whatever you like now. Only save your child. Place no fresh obstacle to this marriage. Don't continue to irritate the duchess's pride by brutal and futile revelations. Don't make it impossible for us to remedy the evil you have done by any new explosion.

DON LORENZO. Frankly, then, you would have me hold my tongue.

DOÑA ÁNGELA. That is it. Hold your tongue.

DON LORENZO. But that would be infamous.

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! Is this what you would counsel? [_With increasing excitement._] Then virtue is but a lie, and you all, whom I have most loved in this world, perceiving what I regarded as divinity in you, are only miserable egoists, incapable of sacrifice, a prey to greed and the mere playthings of passion. Then you are all but clay, and nothing more. And if you are but clay, resolve yourselves to dust, and let the wind of the tempest carry all off. [_Violently._]

DOÑA ÁNGELA. Lorenzo!

DON LORENZO. Beings shaped without conscience or free will are simply atoms that meet to-day and separate to-morrow. Such is matter—then let it go.

DOÑA ÁNGELA. You are wandering, Lorenzo. I don't understand you. I don't know what it is you want.

DON LORENZO. To respect truth and justice.

DOÑA ÁNGELA. Truth!

DON LORENZO. Yes.

DOÑA ÁNGELA. And cry it to the world from the housetops.

DON LORENZO. I will announce it.

DOÑA ÁNGELA. And leave us in poverty.

DON LORENZO. I will earn your bread and my own by my work.

DOÑA ÁNGELA. You earn your bread! Scholar's vanity! Well, be it so, but listen to me first. If it should be that we really have no right to our wealth, give it up,—well and good. [_Don Lorenzo bursts into a cry of delight and advances to her with outstretched arms._] Privations do not fright me, nor am I the miserable woman and egoist you painted erewhile.

DON LORENZO. Ángela, my dear wife, forgive me.

DOÑA ÁNGELA. Do you want my forgiveness? Do you want me to continue blessing the hour I became your wife, as I have always blessed it till to-day?

DON LORENZO. Yes.

DOÑA ÁNGELA. Then do your duty as a man of honour, but in silence, prudently, without ostentation, or noise, or scandal.

DON LORENZO. Why? The duchess would never consent to her son's marriage with Inés even at that price.

DOÑA ÁNGELA. Edward answers for his mother's consent.

DON LORENZO. She will never give in.

DOÑA ÁNGELA. She will. She is a woman and a mother. We have not all attained such perfection as yours.

DON LORENZO. I do not believe it.

DOÑA ÁNGELA. Is it that you do not believe it, or that you fear it?

DON LORENZO. But supposing she should consent,—how can I retain a name that is not mine?

DOÑA ÁNGELA. What shabby subtleties to sacrifice my Inés to!

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; the sole divine affection that exists upon this earth, and if heaven be heaven, beyond the blue it will also be found in God himself. Choose now between what you call a name, and what I call a child.

DON LORENZO. Your words madden me.

DOÑA ÁNGELA. If you first lost your senses for Inés' misfortune, it matters little that I should drive you mad for her good.

DON LORENZO. You are partly right, Ángela. I am a poor fool. My scruples are, perhaps, exaggerated. My daughter, my dear Inés—she, so good, so lovely—she would die,—would surely die.

DOÑA ÁNGELA. At last, Lorenzo, my dear husband.

DON LORENZO. But stay—no—my ideas are confused. My brain turns to the flail of a fiery whirlwind. Yet I still feel convinced that it would not be enough to renounce my fortune. I am bound to say why I renounce it.

DOÑA ÁNGELA. Lorenzo!

DON LORENZO. [_Not listening to her, but talking to himself._] It is true that without it I could always materially make restitution of material possessions,—and still without recognising the legitimate rights of those I have despoiled. 'Twould be to make a traitorous and cowardly restitution, under shadow of vain and artificial rights, which I must fabricate for my convenience, and for the benefit of my family, instead of openly and honourably relinquishing what is not mine.

DOÑA ÁNGELA. What nonsense you talk, Lorenzo!

DON LORENZO. [_Not heeding her._] If I retain a name that is not mine, I prove myself a shabby thief—I am compelled to pronounce a word that burns on my lips. I rob a name and all its rights, and I deprive my victims of their best means of defence against a cupidity that may any day develop in my descendants, and perhaps give rise to a worse iniquity in the future. Don't you see it? Surely you must see it if you are not totally blind! 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.

DOÑA ÁNGELA. Very well, if the affair is made public the duchess will not give her consent.

DON LORENZO. She will not consent. 'Tis what I have already said.

DOÑA ÁNGELA. Ah, Lorenzo, Lorenzo, you are everything,—philosopher, moralist, jurisconsult, and, needless to say, gentleman. All, all, wretched reflecting machine, except a father.

DON LORENZO. If you want to drive me out of my senses you are succeeding.

DOÑA ÁNGELA. That would indeed be difficult.

DON LORENZO. Because I am out of them already?

DOÑA ÁNGELA. Yes, but you haven't yet got to the bottom of the abyss. Hear me, Lorenzo, for I, too, understand something of logic—after all, am I not your wife? It is your intention to tell the truth, the entire truth?

DON LORENZO. It is so.

DOÑA ÁNGELA. Before the tribunal of human justice?

DON LORENZO. We need not trouble ourselves about divine justice, which at this moment is weighing you and me.

DOÑA ÁNGELA. Understand me well, Lorenzo. I want to know if you will repeat to the judge, to the lawyers and all, no matter whom, whose business it will be to take possession of your abandoned fortune in the interests of the rightful owners, the story you told us a little while ago?

DON LORENZO. Yes.

DOÑA ÁNGELA. You will tell them everything?

DON LORENZO. I am bound to do so.

DOÑA ÁNGELA. Hear me further. You will have to acknowledge Juana the nurse as your mother.

DON LORENZO. That is the only way left me to wipe away the stain of an iniquitous sentence. Here alone were reason sufficient to prove the crime of the silence you counsel.

DOÑA ÁNGELA. And here, I say, is reason sufficient to command silence as an imperative duty. Can't you see that if Juana be innocent of the wrong imputed, she is guilty of a much greater,—which is called illegal retention of personal rights? You know it well. Falsification of a family is quite as bad as degrading or destroying it. To deprive legitimate owners of their fortune is far worse than to lift a locket from the ground. To conceal an illegitimate birth under an honest name is the same as covering the plague-spot of vice with an ermine mantle. 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?

DON LORENZO. You speak well—but in spite of it you are raving. [_Moves away from her._]

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! What have I done to you, Ángela, that you should torture me so? [_Falls nervously into arm-chair at table._] My head burns; it is on fire.

DOÑA ÁNGELA. [_Gently._] Lorenzo, Lorenzo.

DON LORENZO. Yes, you are right, and I am a poor fool. How can I know what I ought to do? Darkness envelops me. What is truth? What is falsehood?

DOÑA ÁNGELA. [_Aside._] It was very cruel of me, but I have saved my child. He will not speak. [_Don Lorenzo seated, sinks down in chair, with his arms upon table, and hides his face in both hands. Doña Ángela approaches him caressingly and speaks tenderly._] Forgive me, Lorenzo.

DON LORENZO. Go away—in mercy leave me.

DOÑA ÁNGELA. I wanted to show you the abyss you were falling into. I wanted to save Inés, and to save you yourself from your own outbreak.

DON LORENZO. Yes, yes, Ángela. I understand, but leave me now.

DOÑA ÁNGELA. Do you forgive me?

DON LORENZO. I forgive you—and love you. Poor Ángela, you too are suffering. But I desire to be alone.

DOÑA ÁNGELA. Very well. I am going. But do not fret. We shall find some way out of the difficulty. I will tell Inés that you want to see her—you would like to speak to her and comfort her?

DON LORENZO. [_Submissively._] If she wishes it.

DOÑA ÁNGELA. Then wait here, and I will come for you presently, and then, beside our child, together, at one in our desire and with a common will, you'll see that we shall get the better of fatality which now seems to crush us.

DON LORENZO. We'll conquer it, yes, we'll conquer it. [_Speaks unconsciously._]

DOÑA ÁNGELA. Good-bye, and don't bear me rancour.

DON LORENZO. Bear you rancour! I?

DOÑA ÁNGELA. Then good-bye.