Page:Plays by Jacinto Benavente - Third series (IA playstranslatedf03benauoft).pdf/42

 ellers the moment they arrive? On the other hand, the thorny paths lead to gardens and palaces of good fairies and good kings where beautiful princesses dwell, who languish for noble princes who appear to fall in love.

. It may be as you say; but, to my mind, things are as their beginning, and I never saw a thing end well that began badly, and it is easy enough for it to end badly when it has begun well. But when in doubt pluck a hair from the wolf, and as the face is, so is the man. Believe me, we ought to choose this road. Don't you hear music and birds singing, and nothing on this side—only the whistling wind, and birds of evil cry?

. Ah, how can you be so ignorant! This, this is the right road. This is the way the path of virtue always looks—I have seen it in the pictures—and this is the broad and easy path of vice. Don't you think so. Master?

. I do not think anything, now that I have been deceived by the Royal Geographical Society. I must consult my books.

. Here comes a beautiful lady who will be able to tell us the road.

. Good morning, gentlemen.

. Beautiful lady, can you tell us where we are and whither these two roads lead?

. I can tell you this—that this is not a road, and it does not lead anywhere.

. Didn't I tell you?

. Wait!—don't you trust her.

. Are you strangers here? If you wish to rest and take some refreshment, I can offer it to you at my house—which is to say at my husband's house—but a short distance away. All these lands which you see are his, and all the