Page:Plays by Jacinto Benavente - Third series (IA playstranslatedf03benauoft).pdf/84

 windows and at the exhibitions, or afterward in the parlors and boudoirs of the rich—graceful, if you will, they were charming; the public was pleased, and they sold very well. Instead of a dazzling flash of inspiration in a single work, a spark of artful grace in a thousand toys; instead of a monument to immortalize an heroic deed and embody beauty to posterity, a paper-weight, perhaps, or a bibelot to support an electric light. And people thought that I had realized my ideal! They judged my soul by my work. They see the grains of sand, but they do not know that in their making a mountain crumbled into dust!

. But suppose the ideal is one of love, as mine is?

. You know the secret. Break the block of your illusions and content yourself with figurines. Love all as you would have loved one.

. Loving much is not the same as loving many. Consider your experience. You broke the marble, but have you been able to forget your model, your Imperia? Why are you here if it is not for her?

. We are all here for something.

. Which we do not tell. We fly from ourselves, from the false lives which we lead, which our position in the world imposes. That is why we huddle together in this promiscuous place where everybody sees and knows everything, but where everybody agrees to see and know nothing. To-night we are cowed into respectability by the presence of the Princess; we are in another world, where we are bored beyond speaking. We would give an eternity to be free as our thoughts are at this moment.

. We are shadows of ourselves as we pass through the world. We see those who walk beside us, yet we know nothing of what they are.

. [To ] I must go with