Page:Plays by Jacinto Benavente - Third series (IA playstranslatedf03benauoft).pdf/227

 love, which is more enduring, more restrained, but in that very little illusion is left; on the contrary, one has resigned oneself to losing one's illusions, day by day. Perhaps the love which is most passionate is the one which resigns itself least easily to losing them, and is least able to rise above its disillusionment. That is what alarms me about my son; he is so violent.

. Yes, I have noticed it; and you have not seen him with my daughter! All he thinks about is making money, an ample fortune, as he calls it. The worst of it is that my daughter's mind runs in the same groove. What they haven't thought of is incredible—going into business, making inventions; needless to say, they are counting upon the lottery. One day I walked into the room and surprised them shouting at the tops of their voices; I was amazed—I felt sure they had had a quarrel. They were merely reciting their parts in a play; they had decided to go on the stage and get rich in poetic drama.

. But how innocent!

. Yes, it may seem innocent, I myself could see the humor of it; but Julio has more dangerous ideas. I don't know whether he has told you

. Yes, I know. My son plans to go to America.

. But you haven't heard that he has a letter offering him a position there, and that he imagines his fortune is already made. While I might resign myself to a modest future for my daughter, which nevertheless would be reasonably secure, you will understand that I can never consent to expose her to the chances of any such hair-brained adventure. What? Separate me from my daughter? She is all I have in the world. Women have loved their children before now, Doña Carmen, but no woman ever loved her daughter as I do mine.