Page:Plays by Jacinto Benavente - Second series (IA playsbyjacintobe00bena).pdf/122

. No.

. Then what shall we do?

. Resume living.

. How?

. By accepting what life has to offer as we pass, sorrow when it is sorrow, joy when it is joy. At this moment, it offers us—friendship, the mutual sympathy of our hearts, it offers us… this music, which haunts our ears and draws us toward itself. It is only a popular song, from a midnight garden not far off, with a halo of legendary, mysterious wickedness. A short while ago, I suggested that we should all visit it together, but, naturally, everybody was shocked. I wonder if you would be shocked, really?

. It might amuse me. Let us go. I have had my fill of propriety for the evening.

. Especially when it descends upon us from quarters in which it is so utterly unexpected… Why, I feel already like a different woman. I am happy now; the past is forgotten. This adventure will repay me for the horrible evening I have spent. And I had expected to be so happy! How beautiful it is to run away, to escape, to fly, always to fly—from somebody, from something!

. If only one believes that one is flying toward happiness.

. No, not toward happiness, because happiness does not exist. There are only happy moments.

. There are… happy moments.

. Why not make this one of them?

Curtain