Chapter II: 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