Page:Plays by Jacinto Benavente - Third series (IA playstranslatedf03benauoft).pdf/207

 all these years on my account, so that I, the young gentleman, might have my career, so that the señorito should want for nothing? I admit it; you don't have to insist. It isn't necessary to throw it like this in my face.

. Why do you talk like that?

. Because I see your object plainly. Will you tell me what good these lessons can do, with the four or five duros they bring you? It is mamma's strategy; her campaign has been evident for some time. She says nothing, she scarcely speaks to me any more, but she takes care to insinuate at every opportunity what she thinks it best not to say.

. That isn't true. Mamma didn't know; she scolded me when she found out. But if it makes you feel badly, I will give it up, although—you don't know what it means. I was so happy! You say you have been the young gentleman of the family, but I have been the young lady all my life. You have studied, you have worked, and whatever you have earned has been for us, while I—I have been the most useless of beings, the vapid young lady with nerves, a care and a burden to you, and to every one else. If only I had had a religious vocation, I might have been a nun, and our difficulties would have been solved. I don't believe I even have a vocation to marry—and it isn't enough for one to have that, there must be two. Yet now, now, I really thought I had found my vocation, teaching little children. The girls don't call me Doña, they call me just Luisa, or Luisita, and they tell me I am their big sister. Sister Luisa. It sounds holy, don't you think so? I almost feel as if I had taken my vows.

. You don't impose on me with this show of false gaiety. There is an undercurrent of sadness in what you say.