Page:Plays by Jacinto Benavente - Second series (IA playsbyjacintobe00bena).pdf/208

 and the first step for him to take is to permit the performance of "Obscurantismo," in spite of the opposition which it has aroused.

. But if I tell him that, don't you see, he will think that I am crazy? He will be justified in believing that I am out of my head.

. Why?

. Because not half an hour ago I threatened to go back to Madrid if he consented to it.

. But in half an hour you have seen a new light, you have come to look at the matter from another point of view. When you spoke before, it was upon impulse. Now you advise him more deliberately.

. But how am I to tell him the opposite of everything which I told him before?

. You convinced him before against his will. That makes it all the easier.

. But you don't know what I said! Besides, what good will it do? People will only repeat what the Marchioness said to Doña O: My husband permits the performance because your brother is manager of the company and you have an interest in it. That is the reason you have used your influence with my husband and with me. Imagine what they will invent!

. Yes, they know everything. The last person I expected to see here was my brother; but he is my brother—yes, he is! He has been knocking about the world as I have been knocking about life, both of us fighting for a foothold, a chance to live—he with his actors and his comedians, I among actors also—and for both of us the real comedy has been the same, the earning of our daily bread; and we have written it with our lives. I am not sorry I met him. He comes in time to remind me that all men are my brothers