“You do not know her,” she added; “she has just arrived from Oporto.”
“Ah, very well; very well! And what have you been doing? How have you spent your time? When is Jorge coming home?”
Then he began to excuse himself for not having gone to see her. He had not a free moment, he said, from morning till night,—always busy with the rehearsals.
“So the drama progresses?” said Luiza.
“Yes, indeed!” And he added enthusiastically, “And how! It is a masterpiece! when one works, one works.” He had just come from the house of the actor Pinto, who took the lover’s part,—that of the Count of Monte Redondo. He had been listening to him reciting the final words of the third act. “Malediction! Fate pursues me; be it so then; I shall fight hand to hand with Fate! To the combat!” It was wonderful. He had just been receiving notice, too, to remodel the monologue in the second act. The manager thought it a trifle long.
“So then the manager continues to annoy you with his exactions,” said Luiza.
Ernesto shrugged his shoulders with a look of irritation. Then he said, with a joyful countenance,—
“Every one is wild about it. Yesterday he said to me, ‘Ledesma, all Lisbon will come in a body to the first representation; you will ruin the other theatres.’ He is not a bad sort of man. I am going now to the house of Bastos, who writes for the ‘Verdade.’ Do you know him?”
Luiza could not well remember.
“Bastos, of the ‘Verdade,’” he repeated. And seeing that Luiza was trying in vain to recollect, he added, “There is no one you know better.” And he went on to describe him.