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._]