Page:Plays by Jacinto Benavente - Second series (IA playsbyjacintobe00bena).pdf/107

 dark garden is infinitely preferable to a lighted salon, and a pretty chambermaid to a respectable lady, who is more cautious. As for myself, I prefer kisses to all the music in the world, although I restrain my impulses so not to shock the Baroness. Only vulgar persons take their art at second hand, manufactured for them by professionals, whose heart is not in it. Superior spirits live their art—they wish it free. Yours is a superior spirit, M. de Chantel, and you deserve credit; I congratulate you with all my heart. Comte, shall we return to the concert?—although classic music will seem rather cold after this natural music, which has drifted in at the window.

. I shall not be cold while I am with you in any case. Life with you is all art and all loveliness.

. Life with me is all happiness. Come, let us return to the concert.

. M. de Chantel, I appeal to your sympathy. Was ever woman in a more humiliating position?

. Oh, my dear Baroness! I am not a courtier; I was not brought up among princes and noblemen. I am low-born; I have seen everything, I have endured everything. I have been hungry, not only myself, but my mother has been hungry, my sisters and brothers, all those who were near and dear to me. You do not know what that means, my dear Baroness, and I hope you may never know. Of humiliations, of the times I have been obliged to be false to my conscience, to my innermost beliefs, I say nothing. And apart from what I have suffered, I have seen a great deal. Misery and degradation have no secrets from me. I have seen factories and workshops and mines where human beings are herded together like beasts to earn their deaths, for it would be irony to pretend that they were earning a liv-