Page:Plays by Jacinto Benavente - Second series (IA playsbyjacintobe00bena).pdf/142

 afraid to see it transformed into a lie. If I could look into my soul every day and discover a new truth, which when found would disarrange my life completely, I should not hesitate to destroy my life every day so as to live a new life every day with a new truth. Is that the way that you feel?

. It is so hard to destroy! Who knows?—when love has already become a lie in our hearts, it may still be, perhaps, the truth of another heart, which we have no right to destroy.

. Do you believe that either Elsa or Herr Rosmer would have any regrets?

. I believe that it is not so easy to escape responsibility in life, nor to stifle the pangs of remorse. Possibly the motives of the woman who is now my wife, and of the man who is now your lover, may not have been altogether disinterested when they accepted our love. Yet we led them to believe that they might safely build the future fabric of their lives upon it. If we fail them now, then what of that future? It becomes impossible. How false their position, to what humiliation they will be exposed, to what reprisals! And our condition will be no better. We shall no longer be romantic lovers who have sacrificed everything to love. Another experiment, and we shall renounce something more than our dignity as Princes; we shall forfeit our self-respect as well.

. Then… the past must always influence our lives. There can never be a moment which we can really call ours, when we speak and feel and love as at that moment we really do. The dead body of something must always be chained at our heels. No, I can no longer pray at an altar when I have lost my faith. My prayers end, my faith is exhausted. I must love when I love, forget when I forget. If I were to hesitate now, I should go further; I