"No, no!" she broke out suddenly. "We haven't the right to suffer!"
"Human beings have no greater and more sacred right."
"But don't you see that we girls must always be gay, dance, laugh: our profession is joy, not suffering. If we're glum, we lose our jobs. If we are not ready for gaiety and caresses, we're accused of not earning our pay."
Her lips smiled bitterly. Monsalvat, sitting with one elbow on his knee, and his chin resting on his hand, was looking at her as though trying to drink in her very soul.
"We have to make ourselves over," Nacha continued, "change our natures as well as our names. Do you think it is only out of shame, or because of our families, that we hide our identities? No, it isn't wholly that. Taking another name makes us seem different somehow. It's like the Carnival. Under a disguise, you can do and say all the crazy things that come into your head. Are you ashamed afterwards? No, because when you take off your mask you are no longer the person who played all those wild pranks."
"And last night"—Monsalvat asked, after a brief pause, "why were you so unhappy?"
Through his conversation with Torres he knew the answer to this question; yet he listened anxiously for her reply.
"There you see what comes of being out of sorts!" she said at last. "Why should anyone go to a cabaret to gloom and whimper like a simpleton? Pampa had a right to be angry. I couldn't help it. I had just learned that the only real friend I ever had, the only man I ever really loved, was dying.... And you can imagine how I feel today. It's lucky I can be alone.... I can afford to let myself cry ... and remember!..."
Monsalvat had started at these words. He was glad to know that Nacha was still capable of feeling. At the same time, what she said about her love for Riga filled him with a vague uneasiness. Interrupting, he told her that he had known the poet.
"You knew him? Really? When? Where?"