Page:Plays by Jacinto Benavente - Second series (IA playsbyjacintobe00bena).pdf/133

 There is a quick movement in every waltz, joyous, triumphal, and then a hushed, subdued ritornello whose burden is slow and reluctant, sad as the memory of a joy that is past. When the lights are out and the dance is over, and we are alone in the silence of the soul, the echo of a waltz still lingers in our ears—the echo of a waltz that drops tears.

. What is your favorite music?

. Do not inquire into my musical tastes; they are of deplorable vulgarity. Music appeals to me because of the words I associate with it, and so one air is as good as another. How empty a man's soul must be which is unable to provide words to any music! I am more exacting with poets, because they speak for themselves, and in their case I will tolerate no vulgarity.

. Who is your favorite poet?

. Women feel very much toward poets as they do toward other men. They do not love the ones whom all the world admires. We single out one quality, perhaps, for our love and admiration amid a multitude of defects, or it may be that we love the very defects themselves, because then we know that our choice has been our own—it has been more truly ours.

. Do you admire Shelley, the divine Shelley?

. I admire and love him. He was the universal lover.

. Are you familiar with his life?

. It was wholly wonderful, more wonderful even than his verse. He persuaded his own wife to abet his elopement with Emilia Viviani. What marvellous power of suggestion that genius must have possessed, which was able to unite two women in a single love!

. Do you remember his verses?