Page:Plays by Jacinto Benavente - Second series (IA playsbyjacintobe00bena).pdf/185

 serious, that I am a woman without judgment, without character

. What I said was

. You treat me like a cocotte.

. Wife! I never treated such a person in my life.

. As soon as a woman ceases to be honorable, everybody begins to blame her. Her husband is the first!

. Naturally.

. Why are women so foolish as to be honest? Why, oh, why do we love? How often you see a woman who has thrown herself away upon a man who hasn't the remotest idea what to do with her! What is the use?

. This number was not on the programme of the feria.

. And yet you talk of being serious! What you do, that is serious; what you do, that is dignified! Is it dignified to be false to your promises? To be a traitor to your friends, to those who support and defend you? And when all they ask of you is a trifle!

. A trifle? To break the law, to violate the constitution? Are those trifles?

. You evade me. To leave me publicly exposed after what happened in the cathedral this morning—is that a trifle? The petitions of all the ladies' societies, the requests of our friends, the Solars, the Villaquejidos, the Remolinos, the Peribáñezs, everybody

. Everybody? Yes, the whole world, the universe! That is what makes me angry. Who are these people that they should set themselves up to dictate to me? It is a pretty sign of morality when all the rogues begin to moralize. Don Baldomero Remolinos shocked by a comedy? Think of it! As if every one didn't remember that he opened his first shop to the tune of the "Hymn of Riego," and what