ladies of such lords if they sometimes forget their oath of allegiance, and occasionally decline upon lesser natures. However picturesque, as housemates these Velasquez gentlemen are beyond endurance, and deserve to perish victims of their own relentless nobility.
Don Jaime adored his wife and loved his half-brother. Both in turn loved him, and recognised to the full his claim upon their mutual admiration. But this was naturally no impediment to their own frailty, though not even Echegaray's sinners are for one moment permitted to give a cheerful aspect to sin. It is perhaps a double unwisdom to stoop to folly when they mean to be so persistently miserable over it. Certain it is, that in this case the lady's choice cannot have been prompted by any desire for a lively change. Manfred is only a more scowling, discontented edition of the legitimate Don. 'You are sadder than ever, and your hand avoids the touch of mine,' he complains to Beatrix in the beginning of the second act. And she replies: 'I am ever sad. Sorrow is throned within my bosom, and so imperious is its possession, that death alone can free its slave.' And then when Manfred prays for death as a mutual deliverance, she reproaches him: 'Does my love not then suffice you? If so, live and enjoy it, or confess that of our sin the vase only contains the bitterness, the shame and the disenchantment.'
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