You have cowed me all you could, you have crushed and kept me under, without a will of my own, always fearful of your displeasure. I was afraid to live, to think for myself. But the same passions which stirred in you when you brought me into the world stir in me, in spite of myself. I have always dreaded this day, I knew it must come, this clash which drives you to be cruel with me, and me, perhaps, to appear an ingrate.
Carmen. Do you hear? Do you hear my son?
Hilario. Yes, I hear him. Doña Carmen, and I hear you, too, and I hear life, whose voice is louder than ours, and which tells us that our children are not our children, that they are men, and belong to humanity. Oh, you mothers who have grown old, you nations that decay, do not call it ingratitude when your children leave you! Children never leave their mothers. When you have gone walking with the children, strolling along with friends of your own age, while they played with the other children, haven't you often noticed, as you walked, how the children would soon be at a distance, and then you, the older people, would call out: "Children! Don't run, my dears! Don't lose sight of us. You will get lost." And they, without stopping, would call back, from where they were: "We won't lose sight of you, we are here! We are only running ahead." It is selfishness to expect youth to keep step with age, or to dishearten it with the disillusionments of our experience when it sets out, brighteyed and filled with hope, upon its career. Such selfishness life does not permit. What would we think of a general who, before going into battle with his recruits, led them first to a hospital filled with the maimed and wounded? Many will die in the battle, many will return incapacitated, but the battle must be joined in the expectation of victory, with the swell of triumphal music in our ears, the flaunting of ban-
