Pepito. There, we will discuss tears and sorrows another time.
Ernest. If everybody else is discussing them to-day, why should we too not speak of them? The whole town is astir and on tiptoe with excitement. It has swallowed up, devoured and blighted three reputations, three names, three persons, and floated them on the froth of laughter and a wave of degrading chatter down the straits of human misery, into the social abysm of shame, where for ever lie engulfed the conscience, and fame, and future of the unfortunates.
Mercedes. Not so loud, Ernest
Ernest. Why? since the others are not murmurs, but voices, that thunder through the air? The tragic event is known all over the town, and each one has his own way of telling it. Wonderful! everything is known except the truth. 'Tis fatality. [Doña Mercedes and Pepito exhibit keen interest in hearing the reports.] Some say that Don Julian discovered Teodora in my rooms, and that I attacked him in blind fury and killed him on the spot. Others—and these would seem to be my friends, since they raise me from the rank of vulgar assassin to the noble level of duellist—aver that we fought loyally like gentlemen. And there are others, again, who have the tale more accurately, and recount how Don Julian took my place in the arranged meeting with Nebreda—that I arrived late on the scene—either from design or fear, or because I was in the armsbut, no; it would burn my lips to give this version—the thought of it sets my brain on fire. Seek the basest, the vilest, that which most blackens—the filth of the mind, the mire of the soul, the dross of degraded consciences; cast it to the wind as it whistles along the streets upon bespattering tongues, and you will have the tale, and may see what reputation remains for an innocent woman and two honest men when the town takes to jabbering about them.
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