Page:Plays by Jacinto Benavente - Third series (IA playstranslatedf03benauoft).pdf/173

. Don't take it too seriously. What have I to look forward to—a clerk upon starvation wages? To appear decently in the circles in which she moves would be beyond the reach of my salary. There are men who can borrow on the strength of a fiancée's property, but I never could. Besides, if I could… Well, the girl is fond of me. Why should I tell you anything else? And her father is not unfavorable; neither are her sisters—so much so that there is one who is more taken with me than the one I am taken with, but the mother—the mother is terrific! Whenever she sees me coming, she turns her head the other way, and then I know she is watching us, for the darn thing is cross-eyed.

. The daughter is pretty, though.

. That depends upon which you call the daughter; there are three of them, and a wide variety. Mine—I call her mine to distinguish her—is fair, only fair. They dress well, they follow the styles, and are tighter about the waist than a pass by the bull-fighter Machaco. I never know whether I have hold of a woman or a rolled-up umbrella.

. You must think you are smart.

. I do my best to keep my end up. There are so many young fellows about town with plenty of money and plenty of automobiles, and so little else besides, that I see no reason why I shouldn't compete. I shall never marry except for money; I have made myself that promise.

. But how mercenary!

. Am I? No, other people are. Money is nothing to me. Others appear to want it—the landlady, the tailor, the tobacconist. When they stop asking it, I shall stop making it, and lose no time about it, either. Marriage, it seems to me, was designed to make a man more complete; it is a means of acquiring what a person has not. I don't need a wife, thank God, not every day; what I need is money. Now,