came a symbol to designate a
go-between, inciting to illicit love. In the fifth canto of the _Inferno_,
Francesca da Rimini narrates to Dante how she and Paolo read one day, all
unsuspecting, the romance of Launcelot; and after she tells how her lover,
allured by the suggestion of the story, kissed her on the mouth all
trembling, she adds,

Galeotto fu'l libro e chi lo scrisse,

which may be translated, "The book and the author of it performed for us
the service of Gallehault." Now Echegaray, desiring to retell in modern
terms the old familiar story of a man and a woman who, at first innocent in
their relationship, are allured by unappreciable degrees to the sudden
realisation of a great passion for each other, asked himself what force it
was, in modern life, which would perform for them most tragically the
sinful service of Gallehault. Then it struck him that the great Gallehault
of modern life--_El Gran Galeoto_--was the impalpable power of gossip, the
suggestive force of whispered opinion, the prurient allurement of evil
tongues. Set all society to glancing slyly at a man and a woman whose
relation to each other is really innocent, start the wicked tongues
a-babbling, and you will stir up a whirlwind which will blow them giddily
into each other's arms. Thus the old theme might be recast for the purposes
of modern tragedy. Echegaray himself, in the critical prose prologue which
he prefixed to his play, comments upon the fact that the chief character
and main motive force of the entire drama can never appear upon the stage,
except in hints and indirections; because the great Gallehault of his story
is not any particular person, but rather all slanderous society at large.
As he expresses it, the villain-hero of his drama is _Todo el
mundo_,--everybody, or all the world.

This, obviously, is a great idea for a modern social drama, because it
concentrates within itself many of the most important phases of the
perennial struggle between the individual and society; and this great idea
is embodied with direct, unwavering simplicity in the story of the play.
Don Julian, a rich merchant about forty years of age, is ideally married to
Teodora, a beautiful woman in her early twenties, who adores him. He is a
generous and kindly man; and upon the death of an old and honored friend,
to whose assistance in the past he owes his present fortune, he adopts into
his household the son of this friend, Ernesto. Ernesto is twenty-six