Out of the Wings

O locura o santidad (1877), José Echegaray y Eizaguirre

Madman or Saint, translated by Gwynneth Dowling

ACT ONE Scene Thirteen

Context:

Lorenzo is reading the letter written by his mother. He had just reached the point at which his mother confesses that she and her husband had no children, when he is interrupted with news that the Duchess is waiting to speak to him. Lorenzo makes the Duchess wait, becoming more and more agitated to discover what the rest of the letter says.

Sample text

LORENZO:: The letter! Where’s the damned letter? You’ve got it.
JUANA: (Taking out the letter.): Yes I do.
LORENZO:: Give it to me then. “We had no children” – that’s what it said! (Trying to read, but not managing to.) Where’s that bit? I don’t know … I can’t make out the words! My eyes have clouded over. “We had no children”! I can’t! I just can’t! You read it, please. (JUANA takes the note.) Right there! Right there – where it says, “We had no children”!
JUANA: (Reading.): “My husband knew that his illness was incurable and would soon drain the life from him. Madly in love, he wanted to make sure I inherited all his wealth. I did the wrong thing, I know that now, because his father was still alive. But I … forgive me, Lorenzo … my Lorenzo, so honest and good … but I agreed.”; Pause.
LORENZO:: Go on … go on.
JUANA:: “We looked for a son. I can’t, I can’t write anymore. Juana knows my secret. Juana will tell you everything. I ask you once more to forgive me. Goodbye, my Lorenzo, may God grant you wisdom. I loved you like a son, even though you were not ours.”
LORENZO:: I … I was not …!? What’s she saying? I wasn’t her son? This name’s not mine? For forty years I’ve been enjoying the wealth of another! I stole it all! My position, surname, my riches! Everything! Even my mother’s caresses – for she wasn’t even my mother! No, it’s not possible, I’m not that wretched. Juana … Juana, upon my life, tell me the truth. Not for me, God can do what he wants with me. But for my family … those poor women … for my daughter, my darling Inés. She’ll die … and I don’t want her to die! (Crying in desperation.)
JUANA:: It’s true. But calm down. What does it matter, if no one else knows?
LORENZO:: But, is it true?
JUANA: (Quietly.): It is.
LORENZO:: But it can’t be true! That woman, the woman I loved so much – she wasn’t my mother?
JUANA:: No, your real mother loved you much more.
LORENZO:: But who is she?
JUANA:: Lorenzo!
LORENZO:: What’s her name?
JUANA:: Look into my eyes, without anger, and I’ll tell you.
LORENZO:: Where is she?
JUANA:: Struggling with the fires of hell!
LORENZO:: Did she die as well?
JUANA:: She’s dying!; During the last part of this conversation, JUANA stands up. She and LORENZO form an agitated, delirious, fervent couple. After her last statement JUANA falls once more, exhausted, on the sofa.
LORENZO:: Juana!
JUANA: (Twisting in distress.): No! Not that name, no!
LORENZO:: Mother!
JUANA:: Yes! That’s my name … My son!; With a titanic effort she gets up and embraces LORENZO.

Copyright

The above sample taken from the translation Madman or Saint by Gwynneth Dowling is licensed under a Creative Commons License.

ACT TWO Scene Four

Context:

In characteristically over-the-top style, Lorenzo is feeling sorry for himself, after concluding that his honesty obliges him to forbid the marriage of Eduardo and Inés. His wife Angela tries to convince him to conceal the truth about his parents for the sake of his daughter.

Sample text

LORENZO:: Why’d this have to happen to me!
ANGELA: (Ironically.): To you? You’re not the one suffering here, she is! No doubt you take great and saintly solace just thinking about your high moral standards.
LORENZO:: How little you understand me and how greatly you misjudge me!
ANGELA: (Full of sarcasm.): Misjudge you? Oh no. How I humbly admire the fruits of your sainthood! How little I understand you? Now, there you are correct – superior beings like yourself are way beyond the reach of poor, ignorant minds like myself.
LORENZO:: Angela … your words are like a knife to the heart.
ANGELA:: Your heart? Not likely!
LORENZO:: What would you have had me do? Go on, some advice please, solve everything. Shed some light on my soul, it’s trembling in the shadows.
ANGELA:: What would I have had you do? Exactly what I want you to do now. Save your daughter’s life. Don’t put any more obstacles in the path of this wedding. Don’t test the Duchess’s pride with any more crude and pointless revelations. Don’t add insult to injury with any more scandal. Don’t make it impossible for us to repair the damage you’ve already caused.
LORENZO:: In short, you want me to say nothing.
ANGELA:: Yes, say nothing.
LORENZO:: But that would be a disgrace.
ANGELA:: I don’t know about that. I’m sorry, that’s my final word on the matter.
LORENZO:: It’s just that every part of my being resists the idea. In its cowardice, it’s the most heinous of crimes … and I would be complicit. Me, revelling in riches, false names and all the joys that don’t to belong to me … to us! They don’t belong to us because it isn’t God’s will, and because it isn’t His will, it should not be! Inés, you, me, everyone – we’re all knee-deep in the mire. And that’s your advice? (Getting gradually more and more worked up.) In that case, virtue’s a lie. In that case, all of you … those I loved most in the world because I saw something of the divine in you … in that case, you’re all selfish and miserable. Scared of sacrifice and enslaved by your greed and desires. You’re clay and nothing more! And if you’re clay, why not just turn to dust, and may the stormy wind carry us all off!

Copyright

The above sample taken from the translation Madman or Saint by Gwynneth Dowling is licensed under a Creative Commons License.

Folly or Saintliness (1895), translated by Ramón Griffero

ACT ONE Scene Two

Edition

Echegaray, José. 1895. The Great Galeoto; Folly or Saintliness. Two Plays Done From the Verse of José Echegaray into English Prose, trans. Hannah Lynch. London, Lane; Boston, Lamson Wolfe and Company. Available online at http://www.archive.org/details/greatgaleotofoll00eche [accessed January 2011]. (Online Publication)

pp. 104-5

Context:

Tomás the family doctor has assessed the condition of Inés, the daughter of Lorenzo and Angela. He diagnoses her as lovesick, claiming that she has inherited Lorenzo’s nervous disposition.

Sample text

DON LORENZO: (Anxiously.): And how is my beloved girl today?
DOÑA ÁNGELA:: Yes, how do you find Inés? (Pause.)
DON LORENZO:: Do tell us. Don’t keep us in suspense. (Pause. Dr Tomás shakes his head ominously.)
DOÑA ÁNGELA:: For heaven’s sake, doctor, tell me if there is any danger.
DON LORENZO:: What are you saying, Ángela? Don’t pronounce the word.
DR TOMÁS:: Softly, softly. You go too far. I don’t, however, say that it is nothing serious.
DON LORENZO:: What do you mean?
DOÑA ÁNGELA:: Oh, what do you mean?
DON LORENZO:: What’s the matter with her? Has the illness a name?
DOÑA ÁNGELA:: What are the remedies? For I suppose it is curable. Oh, Dr Tomás, you must indeed cure my child.
DR TOMÁS:: What is her malady? One of those that causes the greatest misfortune to mankind. What is its name? The poets call it love – we doctors give it another name. How is it cured? This very day, with the aid of the priest; and so excellent a specific is this, that after a month’s appliance neither of the wedded pair retain a vestige of remembrance of the fatal sickness.
DOÑA ÁNGELA:: What nonsense you talk, Dr Tomás! You had almost emptied my veins of blood.
DR TOMÁS:: Well, to be serious. Given the condition of the young lady, her nervous temperament, her extreme susceptibility, and her romantic passion, the malady must be regarded as grave. And if you don’t very speedily seek a remedy in the sweet security of marriage, my friend, I am grieved to say it, but duty compels me to inform you, that you need not count upon Inés. (Gravely.)
DON LORENZO:: Tomás!
DOÑA ÁNGELA:: You really believe …
DR TOMÁS:: I believe that Inés has inherited her father’s excitable and fantastical imagination. Today the fever of love runs like a fiery wave in her veins. If you don’t marry to her to Edward – and that very soon – and she should be given to understand that her hopes are not destined to be realized, though I cannot predict in what way, I unhappily know that the delirium of fantasy, and violence of her affectation will eventually kill her.

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