Juana. [Grasps his arm.] But not for my sake, for hers—for the sake of that dear child.
Don Lorenzo. [Despairingly.] Not even for her sake.
Juana. [Falls into the arm-chair and covers her face with her hands. Exeunt Don Lorenzo and Doña Ángela.]
SCENE VIII
Juana. [Holding the paper in her hand.] Not even for her sake! [Sobs.] Sacrifice yourself, Juana, for your son. Renounce his caresses, tear your breast with your nails on seeing him kiss another woman and call her mother; drink deeply of the tears of bitterness, and gather them in your heart until it overflows or bursts. Bear the brand of shame upon your brow, wear yourself out in poverty and sorrow in a garret for twenty years, with no other happiness or consolation than seeing him pass in his carriage from the distance. Oh, heavens, I am dying! [Pause. She gets better.] Still,—still worse,—poor Juana! suffer all I have mentioned, and in exchange procure him wealth, reputation, celebrity—and at the last moment of your life come to him and only ask a kiss, only ask him to say once: 'How good you have been to me! How fondly you have loved me!' What will he say? Nothing of this. He will glance at you in austere sadness, and tell you that you have committed an infamy, and that he must wipe out your crime,—that your work is—a work of iniquity. A work of iniquity! Oh, Lorenzo, my son! Why are you so cruel? Why do you cast from you in contempt all that I gave you at the price of my own happiness? See what tears you cost me! [Changes her voice and crosses R. with a desperate gesture.] And my sacrifice has been in vain. I have forfeited my own happiness and lost his too. Mad woman, egoist! Why did I tell him the truth? [Pause.] But it must not be, it must not be. No, the
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