Berm. That to prevent the son from becoming fully acquainted with the disorders of the father—because the boy, naturally, was growing up, the mother had to send him to a college in France.
Laz. (aside). It is I. It is I! Ah! ah! Calm! let me be calm!
Berm. What do you say?
Laz. Nothing. I laugh at those family tragedies—the father a madcap, and the son,—— And as you fill me with such respect—and as the subject is so sad—I should not have presumed to laugh. Ah! Señor de Bermudez, what a world this is!—what a world this is! Come, come. (Growing calm.) Yes, señor, the history, so far as I know, is entirely correct. Then they sent him to study in Madrid—that unfortunate, unfortunate youth: but, look you, not so unfortunate—for he went through his course with distinction.
Berm. Quite so, and the father remained always the same.
Laz. (somewhat harshly). Let us not speak of the father. And why? Because the son is now launched on the world; then let us leave out of the question the other. (Recollecting himself.) Ah! pardon me. I love my father so much, I respect him so much, that those words which you have uttered have caused me much pain, much pain. A weakness I confess; a man of science does not know those weaknesses; but we poets are thus. You—you raise yourselves above the level of human miseries. The eagle soars alike—eh? above the peak of granite with its robe of frost—eh? and over the infected puddle—or the mire—the mire—eh? But we are not all as Doctor Bermudez? (Grasping his hand.)
Berm. I respect your delicacy: but science is implacable. A father who has consumed his life in vice——
Lazarus retreats in his chair.
Who has wallowed with all the energies of his nature in the mire of riot, who has heated his blood in the embers of all impure fires—runs the danger of transmitting to his son nothing but the germs of death or the germs of madness!
Lazarus recoils more and more.