CHAPTER XI

1

That year there was a marvellous harvest, and by the end of July the

sun had burned the wheat into the very quintessence of gold, and every

evening for a few moments the reflection of its dying rays transfigured

it into a vision, so glorious, so radiant, that Dick, looking up from his

fish, would exclaim to the dinner-table, “Good God! Look at the wheat!”

Thus must the memory of the corn of Cana, sown with symbols, heavy with

memories and legends, radiant with gleams caught from the Golden City in

the skies, have appeared to St. John dying in the desert.

Teresa, having, during her walks in the view, noticed a field of

wheat from which a segment had already been cut, so that, with the

foil of the flat earth beside it, she was able to see the whole depth

of the crop, carried away an impression of the greater thickness of

wheat-fields as compared to those containing the other crops; and this

impression—strengthened by the stronger colouring of the wheat, for to

the memory quality is often indistinguishable from quantity—lingering

with her after she had got back to Plasencia, whence the view always

appeared _pintado_, a picture, gave her the delusion of appreciating

the actual _paint_, not merely as a medium of representation, but as a

beautiful substance in itself; as one appreciates it in a Monet or a

Monticelli.

And all the time, silently, imperceptibly, like the processes of nature,

the work of harvest was transforming the picture, till by the end of

the first week in August many of the planes of unbroken colour had been

dotted into shocks or garnered into ricks. The only visible agent of this

transformation was an occasional desultory wain with a green tarpaulin

tilt, meandering through the silent fields. Its progress through, and

its relation to, or, rather, its lack of relation to, the motionless

view gave Teresa an almost eerie sense of incongruity, and made her

think of a vase of crimson roses she had sat gazing at one night in the

drawing-room. The light of the lamp behind it had changed the substance

of the roses into something so translucent that they seemed to be made of

a fluid or of light. A tiny insect was creeping in and out among their

petals, and as she watched it she had a sense of being mentally out of

gear in that she could see simultaneously phenomena belonging to such

different planes of consciousness as these static phantom flames and

that restless creature of the earth—they themselves, at any rate, could

neither feel or see each other.

Then they all went away—the Doña and Dick to join Hugh Mallam at Harlech,

Jollypot to a sister in Devonshire, and Teresa to Cambridge to stay with

Harry Sinclair.

The year began to pay the penalty of its magnificence; for “violent

fires soon burn out themselves”; and Teresa, walking down the Backs, or

punting up to Byron’s pool, or bicycling among the lovely Cambridgeshire

villages, saw everywhere signs of the approach of autumn in reddening

leaves and reddening fruits, and there kept running in her head lines

from a poem of Herrick’s on _Lovers How They Come and Part_.

They tread on clouds, and though they sometimes fall,

They fall like dew, and make no noise at all.

So silently they one to th’other come

As colours steale into the Pear or Plum.

While she was there she met Haines (the man who ran the pastoral

players). He had heard of her play from Guy, and was so importunate in

his requests to be allowed to read it that she finally gave it to him.

Guy had been right—the need to publish or produce was biological: useless

to fight against.

Haines liked it, and wanted to set his company working at it at once.

As one hypnotised, she agreed to all of his suggestions: “Cust says you

have a lawn with a view which would make an excellent natural background

... I believe it would be the very thing. It’s a piece that needs very

few properties—some cardboard trees for the orchard, a few bottles and

phials for Trotaconventos’s house, and an altar to give the effect of a

chapel in the last scene ... yes, it should be very nice on your lawn, I

think folk will like it.”

Did he say _folk_? But, of course, it would obviously be a favourite word

of his.

* * * * *

So, _Folk_ were to take a hand—_Folk_ were to spring up like mushrooms on

the lawn of Plasencia, and embody her dreams!

A little shiver went down her spine.

“I am a fool, I am a fool, I am a fool,” she muttered.

2

They all came back to Plasencia at the beginning of September.

The Doña received the plan of the play’s being acted on her lawn with

indulgent indifference; ever since they had been quite little her

children had periodically organised dramatic performances. “Mrs. Moore

can bring her Women’s Institute to watch it, and that should leave me in

peace for this year, at any rate. I suppose we’d better have the county

too, though we _did_ give them cakes and ices enough at Concha’s wedding

to last them their lifetime. What is this play of yours about, Teresa?”

“Oh ... old Seville,” she answered nervously, “a nunnery ... and ... and

... there’s a knight ... and there’s an old sort of ... sort of witch.”

“Aha! an old gipsy. And does she give the girls love potions?” And the

Doña, her head a little on one side, contemplated her, idly quizzical.

“Yes, I daresay she does,” and Teresa gave a nervous laugh, “it’s an

_auto sacramentál_,” she added.

The Doña looked interested: “An _auto sacramentál_? That’s what they used

to play in the old days in the Seville streets at Corpus Christi. Your

great-grandmother de La Torre saw one of the last they ever did,” then

she began to chuckle, “an _auto sacramentál_ on an English lawn! Poor

Mrs. Moore and her Women’s Institute! Still, it will be very good for

them, I’m sure.”

* * * * *

Would she guess? She was horribly intelligent; but not literary, so there

was hope—and yet ... that affective sensitiveness that, having taken the

place for centuries of education and intellection, has developed in the

women of Spain into what is almost a sixth sense....

Well, if she did guess it would be only what she knew already, and if she

chose to draw false conclusions—let her!

But would she recognise herself? The mere possibility of this made Teresa

blush crimson. But it was not her fault; she had not meant to draw her

like that—it had grown on her hands.

And then she thought no more about it, but wandered through the garden

and ripening orchard, muttering absently:

So silently they one to th’other come,

As colours steale into the Pear or Plum.

3

After what seemed an interminable correspondence with Haines, it was

settled that he should bring his company to act the play at the end of

September. Teresa had tried hard to make the date an earlier or a later

one; but it was not to be ... and perhaps ... who could tell?

Mrs. Moore was delighted that her Institute was to see a play about old

Spain, and was sure that it would be most educative.

The idea of its being played before Mrs. Moore and a Women’s Institute

amused Teresa; after all it was none of her doing, and she liked watching

life when it was left free to arrange its own humorous combinations.

Concha and Rory, Arnold, Harry Sinclair, and Guy, all came to stay at

Plasencia to see it; and two days before the performance a telegram came

from David, asking if they could put him up for a few nights.

The Doña frowned as she read it, and Guy looked at Teresa; but Concha and

Rory begged that room might be made for him, “It will be his last beano,

poor creature,” they said.

Well, if it was to be, it was to be. Once one ceases to strain against

the chain of events, the peace of numbness creeps over one’s weary limbs,

and anyway ... perhaps....

* * * * *

The day of the performance arrived; it was to begin at two o’clock.

All morning Teresa was busy with preparations; she could not help being

amused by the tremendous importance that everything concerning it had

for Haines—it was like Parker, who seemed to think the world should stop

moving during the fitting-on in the sewing-room of a new blouse.

No one had time to go in the car to meet David; and they had already

begun luncheon when he arrived. All the actors were there, so it was

a large party, and he sat down on the Doña’s left hand, far away from

Teresa. She noticed that he ate practically nothing. He looked much

stronger than in the spring, and his expression was almost buoyant.

Before the audience arrived, and when the actors were dressing in the two

tents pitched on the lawn, they got a few words together.

“I’ve come,” he said, smiling.

“Yes ... you’ve come,” she answered.

“So you’ve been writing a play—‘a chiel amang us takin’ notes’!” and he

smiled down on her.

Then Mrs. Moore came bustling across the lawn, shepherding her Institute,

a score of working women in their Sunday finery, many of them carrying

babies.

“How do you do, Teresa, what a glorious day! I saw dear Concha in church

on Sunday; looking so bonny. It must be delightful having her back again.

Well, this is a great surprise; we didn’t know you were an author; did

we, Mrs. Bolton? We didn’t know Miss Lane wrote; did we? Well, we’re all

very much looking forward to it; aren’t we, Mrs. Hedges? I don’t expect

you’ve seen many plays before.”

“I saw _East Lynne_ when I was in service in Bedford,” said one woman

proudly.

“I’ve seen that on the pictures,” said another.

Then the “gentry” began to arrive: “_What_ a day for your play!” “Oh,

what a _sight_ your Michaelmas daisies are! It really is a perfect

setting for a pastoral play,” “Are there to be any country dances?” “Ah!

_you_ have that single rose too ... it certainly is very decorative, but

I thought Mr. Lane said ... ah! there he is, in flannels, wise man!” “Ah,

there’s Mistress Concha, looking about sixteen, dear thing!—” “I do think

it’s a splendid idea having the Institute women—it’s so good for them,

this sort of thing.”

Then fantastic figures began to dart in and out of the two tents: a

knight in pasteboard armour, a red cross painted on his shield, a friar

with glimpses of scarlet hose under his habit—all of them “holy people

of God,” all of them dead hundreds of years ago ... _Folk_, unmistakably

_Folk_.

Soon the audience was seated; the chattering ceased, and the play began.

This was the play:

THE KEY

AN AUTO SACRAMENTÁL

_Scene: Seville. Time: The Reign of Pedro the Cruel._

DRAMATIS PERSONÆ

SISTER PILAR ⎞_Nuns of the Convent of San Miguel._

SISTER ASSUMCION ⎠

Four other Nuns of the Convent of San Miguel.

TROTACONVENTOS _a Procuress._

DON MANUEL DE LARA _a Knight._

DENNYS _a French “Trovar.”_

JAIME RODRIGUEZ _Confessor to the Nuns of San Miguel._

DON SALOMON _a Jewish Doctor._

PEPITA ⎞_Two Children._

JUANITO ⎠

SANCHO ⎞

DOMINGO ⎟_Alguaciles._

PEDRO ⎠

GHOST OF DON JUAN TENORIO.

GHOST OF SISTER ISABEL.

ZULEICA _a Moorish Slave._

ACT I

SCENE I

_The court of the Convent of San Miguel: its floor is diapered

with brightly-coloured tiles; in its centre is a fountain,

round which are set painted pots of sweet basil, myrtle, etc.,

its walls are decorated with arabesques and mottoes in Arabic

characters; against one wall is a little shrine containing

a wooden virgin. SISTER ASSUMCION is reading aloud from

“Amadis de Gaul” to four nuns who are sitting round on rugs

embroidering. A Moorish slave is keeping the flies from them

with a large fan._

_Sister Assumcion_ (_reads_): The hand then drew her in, and she was as

joyful as though the whole world had been given her, not so much for the

prize of beauty, which had been won, as that she had thus proved herself

the worthy mate of Amadis, having, like him, entered the forbidden

chamber, and deprived all others of the hope of that glory.

(_Lays down the book_): Well, and so that is the end of the fair Lady

Oriana.

_First Nun_ (_with a giggle_): Has any one yet put this reading of Amadis

into their confession?

_Sister Assumcion_: More fool they then if they have; we may confess it

now that we have reached the colophon. Better absolution for a sheep than

a lamb. (_They laugh_).

_Second Nun_: Ah, well, ’tis but a venial sin, and when one thinks....

_Third Nun_: Ay, praise be to heaven for the humours that swell old

abbesses’ legs and make them keep a-bed!

_First Nun_: Truly, since she took to her bed, there have been fine

doings in this house—it was but yesterday that we were reckoning that it

must be close on five months since the Prioress has kept frater.

_Third Nun_: And Zuleica there, sent all through Lent to the _Morería_[1]

or the Jews’ butcher for red meat ... and she was swearing it was all for

her ape Gerinaldo!

_First Nun_: Yes, and the other night I could have sworn I heard the

strains of a Moorish zither coming from her room and the tapping heels of

a _juglaresa_.

_Fourth Nun_ (_with a sigh_): This house has never been the same since

the sad fall of Sister Isabel.

_First Nun_: Ay, that must have been a rare time! Two brats, I think?

_Second Nun_: And they say her lying in was in the house of

Trotaconventos.

_Third Nun_: Ah, well, as the common folk, and (_with rather a spiteful

smile_) our dear Sister Assumcion would say: Who sleeps with dogs rises

with fleas—and if we sin venially, why, the only wonder is that ’tis not

mortally.

_Second Nun_: Be that as it may, if rumours reach the ears of the

Archbishop there’ll be a rare shower of penances at the next visitation.

Why, the house will echo for weeks to the mournful strains of _Placebo_

and _Dirige_, and there will be few of us, I fear, who will not forfeit

our black veils for a season.

_Fourth Nun_: There is one will keep her black veil for the honour of the

house.

_Sister Assumcion_ (_scornfully_): Aye, winds strong enough to level the

Giralda could not blow off the black veil of Sister Pilar.

_Third Nun_: And yet ... she is a Guzman, and the streets are bloody from

their swords; they are a wild crew.

_Fourth Nun_: Yes, but a holy one—St. Dominic was a Guzman.

_Sister Assumcion_ (_mockingly_): St. Martin! To the rescue of your

little bird!... as the common folk and (_with an ironical bow to the

third nun_) Sister Assumcion would say.

_First Nun_: What’s that?

_Sister Assumcion_: Why, it is but a little story that I sometimes think

of when I look at Sister Pilar.

_Second Nun_: Let’s hear the story.

_Sister Assumcion_: Well, they say that one hot day a little martin

perched on the ground under a tree, and, spreading out his wings

and ruffling his little feathers, as proud as any canon’s lady at a

procession in Holy Week, he piped out: Were the sky to fall I could hold

it up on my wings! And at that very moment a leaf from the tree dropped

on to his head, and so scared the poor little bird that he was all of a

tremble, and he spread his wings and away he flew, crying: St. Martin! To

the rescue of your little bird! And that is what we say in the country

when folks carry their heads higher than their neighbours. (_They laugh._)

(_Pause._)

_Second Nun_: And yet has she kindly motions. Do you remember when the

little novice Ines was crying her eyes out because she had not the

wherewithal to buy her habit, and thought to die with shame in that she

would need have to make her profession by pittances? Well, and what must

Sister Pilar do but go to the friend of Ines, little Maria Desquivel,

whose father, they say, is one of the richest merchants in Seville,

feigning that for the good of her soul she would fain consecrate a purse

of money, and some sundries bequeathed her by an aunt, to the profession

of two novices, and said that she would take it very kind if Maria and

Ines would be these two. And so little Ines was furnished out with habit,

and feather-bed, and quilt all powdered with stags’ heads and roses, and

a coffer of painted leather, and a dozen spoons, and a Dominican friar

to preach the sermon at her profession, without expending one blush of

shame; in that she shared the debt with her rich friend. And then, too,

with children she is wonderfully tender.

_Fourth Nun_ (_with a little shiver_): But that cold gray eye like glass!

I verily believe her thoughts are all ... for the last things.

_SISTER ASSUMCION gives a little snort. Silence. SISTER

PILAR comes out of the convent behind the group of nuns, and

approaches them unobserved._

_Fourth Nun_ (_musing_): And yet, that book, by a monk long dead, about

the miracles of Our Lady ... it shows her wondrous lenient to sin, let

but the sinners be loud enough in her praise ... there was the thief she

saved from the gallows because he had said so many Aves.

_Sister Pilar_: But _he_ was not in religion.

(_They all give starts of surprise._)

_Second Nun_: Jesus! How you startled me!

_Third Nun_: I verily believe you carry a heliotrope and walk invisible.

_Sister Assumcion_ (_a note of nervousness perceptible through the

insolence of her voice_): And are those in religion to have, forsooth, a

smaller share in the spiritual treasure of the Church than thieves?

_SISTER PILAR sits down without answering._

_Second Nun_ (_smiling_): Well?

_Sister Pilar_: They say there was once a giant, so strong that he could

have lifted the Sierra Morena and placed them on the Pyrenees, but one

day he happened on a little stone no bigger than my nail, but so firmly

was it embedded in the ground that all his mighty strength availed him

nothing to make it budge an inch.

_Sister Assumcion_: And that little stone is the sin of a religious?

_Sister Pilar_ (_with a shrug_): Give it whatever meaning tallies with

your humour. (_She opens a book and begins to read it._)

_Sister Assumcion_ (_yawning_): I’m hungry. Shall I send Zuleica to beg

some marzipan from the Cellaress, or shall I possess my soul and belly in

patience until dinner-time?

_First Nun_ (_jocosely_): For shame! Gluttony is one of the deadly sins,

is it not, Sister Pilar?

_SISTER PILAR keeps her eyes fixed on her book without

answering. JAIME RODRIGUEZ enters by door to left. Flutter

among nuns._

_Jaime Rodriguez_: Christ and His Mother be with you, my daughters.

(_Sits down and mops his brow._) ’Tis wondrous cool and pleasant in your

court. (_He gives a shy glance at SISTER PILAR, but she continues to keep

her eyes on her book. Turns to fourth nun._) Well, daughter, and what of

the cope you promised me?

_Second Nun_ (_holding up her embroidery_): See! It wants but three more

roses and one swan.

_Jaime Rodriguez_ (_with another glance in the direction of_ SISTER

PILAR): And do you know of what the swan is the figure? In that, flying

from man, it makes its dwelling in wild, solitary haunts, St. Gregory of

Nazianus holds that it figures the anchorite, and truly....

_Sister Pilar_ (_suddenly looking up, and smiling a little_): But what

of its love of the lyre and all secular songs, by which it is wont to be

lured to its destruction from its most secret glens? I have read that

this same failing has led some learned doctors to look upon it as a

figure of the soul of man, drawn hither and thither by the love of vain

things.

_Jaime Rodriguez_ (_up to now he has spoken in a mincing, self-conscious

voice, but from this point on his voice is shrill and excited_): Yes,

yes, but that can also be interpreted as the love of godly men for

sermons and edification and grave seemly discourse on the beautitudes of

eternal life, and the holy deeds of men and women long since departed....

_Sister Assumcion_: The love, in short, of such discourse as yours,

father? (_She tries in vain to catch SISTER PILAR’S eye and wink at her._)

_Jaime Rodriguez_ (_pouting like a cross child_, sotto voce): Honey is

not for the mouth of the ass.

_Sister Assumcion_: Well, when you joined us, we were in the midst of

just such a discourse. ’Twas touching the sin of a religious, which

Sister Pilar was likening to a stone of small dimensions, but so heavy

that a mighty giant could not move it.

_Jaime Rodriguez_ (_turning eagerly to SISTER PILAR_): Where did you read

that _exemplum_, daughter? I have not come upon it.

_Sister Pilar_: Sister Assumcion has drawn her own meaning from a little

foolish tale. She must surely be fresh from pondering the Fathers that

she is so quick to find spiritual significations. Is that volume lying by

you (_pointing to “Amadis”_) one of the works of the Fathers, sister?

_Sister Assumcion_ (_staring at her insolently_): No, Sister, it is not.

_The other nuns titter._

_Jaime Rodriguez_: Well, ’tis doubtless true that a little sin shows

blacker on the soul of a religious than a great sin on a layman’s

soul ... but when it comes to the weighing in the ghostly scales, a

religious has very heavy things to throw into the balance—Aves and

Paters, though made of nought but air, are heavy things. Then, there

is the nourishment of Christ’s body every day, making our souls wax

fat, and—and—(_impatiently_) oh, all the benefits of a religious weigh

heavily. The religious, like a peasant, has a treasure hid ’neath his

bed that will for ever keep the wolf from the door. (_Looks round to see

if his conceit is appreciated._) In Bestiaries, the wolf, you know, is a

figure of the devil.

_Enter from behind TROTACONVENTOS, carrying a pedlar’s pack.

Throughout the play she is dressed in scarlet._

_Trotaconventos_ (_in unctuous, mocking voice_): Six hens to one cock!

I verily believe that was the sight that made Adam weary in Eden. Holy

hens and reverend cock, I bid you good morrow. (_She catches SISTER

ASSUMCION’S eye and gives a little nod._)

_The Nuns in chorus_: Why, ’tis our good friend Trotaconventos!

_First Nun_: For shame! You have sorely neglected San Miguel these last

days. What news in the town?

_Third Nun_: I hear the Ponces gave a tournament and bull-fight to

celebrate a daughter’s wedding, and that the bridegroom was gored by the

bull and the leeches despair of his recovery—is’t true?

_Second Nun_: What is the latest Moorish song?

_First Nun_: Have you been of late to the Alcazar? You promised to note

for me if Doña Maria wore her gown cut square or in a peak?

_Trotaconventos_ (_covering her ears with her hands_): Good ladies,

you’ll have me deaf. And do you not think shame to ask about such worldly

matters before your confessor, there ... and before Sister Pilar?

(_turning to SISTER PILAR_). Well, lady, and have the wings sprouted yet?

But bear in mind the proverb that says, the ant grew wings to its hurt;

and why? Because it took to flying and fell a prey to the birds.

_The nuns exchange glances and giggle. SISTER PILAR looks at

her with cold disgust._

_Sister Pilar_: Truly, you are as well stocked with proverbs and fables

as our sister Assumcion. _You_, doubtless, collect them at fairs and

peasants’ weddings, but ... (_she breaks off suddenly, bites her lip,

colours, and takes up her book_).

_Trotaconventos_: Ah, well, wisdom can walk in a homespun jerkin as

well as in the purple of King Solomon, eh, Don priest? And as to

Sister Assumcion, what if her speech be freckled with a few wholesome,

sun-ripened proverbs? They will not show on her pretty face when the

nuns of Seville meet the nuns of Toledo in the contest of beauty, eh,

my pretty? (_SISTER ASSUMCION laughs and tosses her head._) But the

reverend chaplain is looking sourly! It is rare for Trotaconventos to

meet with sour looks from the cloth. Why, there is not a canon’s house

in _los Abades_ that does not sweetly stink of my perfumes: storax,

benjamin, gum, amber, civet, musk, mosqueta. For do they not say that

holiness and sweet odours are the same? It was Don Miguel de Caceres—that

stout, well-liking canon, God rest his soul, who lived in the house the

choir-master has now—and I used to keep his old shaven face as soft for

him as a ripe fig, and I saw to it that he could drink his pig-skin a day

without souring his breath; well, he used to call me ‘the panther’ of

Seville; for it seems the panther is as many-hued as the peacock, and the

other beasts follow it to their destruction because of the sweet odours

it exudes. And there were words from Holy Writ he would quote about

me—_in odorcur_ or words to that effect. Nor were the other branches....

_Jaime Rodriguez_ (_who had been fidgeting with impatience at

TROTACONVENTOS’S verbosity, as usual shrilly and excitedly_): Doubtless

the words quoted by the late canon were, _in odore unguentorum tuorum

curremus_—in the track of thy perfumes shall we run. They come in the

Song of Songs, the holy _redondilla_ wherewith Christ Jesus serenades

Holy Church, and truly....

_Trotaconventos_ (_calmly ironical_): Truly, Don Jaime, you are a

learned clerk. But as I was saying, it is not only for my perfumes

that they seek me in _los Abades_. Don Canon is wont to have a large

paunch, and Trotaconventos was not always as stout as she is now ...

there were doors through which I could glide, while Don Canon’s bulk,

for all his puffing and squeezing, must stand outside in the street. So

in would go Trotaconventos, as easily as though it were your convent,

ladies, her wallet stuffed with _redondillas_ and _coplas_, and all the

other learned ballads wherein clerks are wont to rhyme their sighs and

tears and winks and leers, and thrown in with these were toys of my own

devising—tiring-pins of silver-gilt, barred belts, slashed shoes, kirtles

laced with silk, lotions against freckles and warts and women’s colics....

_The nuns, except SISTER PILAR, who is apparently absorbed in

her reading, are drinking in every word with evident amusement

and delight, JAIME RODRIGUEZ grows every moment more impatient

and bored._

_Jaime Rodriguez_: Er—er—the Roman dame, Cleopatra, the leman of Mark

Antony, was also learned in such matters; she wrote a book on freckles

and their cure and....

_Trotaconventos_: I do not doubt it, Don Jaime. Well, in would go

Trotaconventos, and round her would flock the pretty little uncoiffed

maids, like the doves in the Cathedral garden when one has crumbs in

one’s wallet. And I would feed them with marzipan and deck them out with

my trinkets, and then they would sigh and say it was poor cheer going

always with eyes cast on the ground and dressed as soberly as a nun

(_she winks at the Nuns_) when they had chest upon chest packed as close

as pears in a basket with scarlet clothes from Bruges and Malines, and

gowns of Segovian cloth and Persian samite, and bandequins from Bagdad,

all stiff with gold and pearls and broidered stories, rich as the shroud

of St. Ferdinand or the banners of the King of Granada, lying there to

fatten the moths till their parents should get them a husband. And I

would say, ‘Well, when the dog put on velvet breeches he was as good as

his master. There’s none to see but old Trotaconventos, and _she_ won’t

blab. I’d like to see how this becomes you, and this ... and this.’ And I

would have them decked out as gay and fine as a fairy, and they strutting

before the mirror and laughing and blushing and taking heart of grace.

Then my hand would go up their petticoats, and they would scream, ‘Ai!

ai! Trotaconventos, you are tickling me!’ and laugh like a child of

seven. And I would say, ‘Ah, my sweeting, there is one could tickle you

better than me.’ And so I would begin Don Canon’s suit. Ay, and I would

keep him posted in her doings, telling him at what procession she would

be at, or in what church she would hear ‘cock’s mass.’ Or, if it was to a

pretty widow his fancy roved, it was I that could tell him which days she

was due at the church-yard to pray at her husband’s grave ... aye, as the

proverb says, when the broom sprouts the ass is born to eat it.

_Sister Assumcion_ (_with a malicious glance at JAIME RODRIGUEZ_): But

another proverb says: Honey is not for the mouth of the ass.

_Trotaconventos_ (_with a wink_): And yet another says: Honey lies hid

in rocks; and it was not only to the houses of lords and merchants that

I went on Don Canon’s business. How did I win my name of Trotaconventos?

It was not given me by my gossips at the font. I was not taught in my

catechism that on the seventh day God created man and woman, and on the

eighth day He created monks and nuns ... were you so taught, Sister Pilar?

_JAIME RODRIGUEZ, with a petulant sigh, gets up and goes and

examines the arabesques on one of the walls._

_Sister Pilar_ (_looking up from her book, her eye sparkling and her

cheek flushing_): As to that ... I have seen a painted Bible wherein the

Serpent of Eden is depicted with a wicked old woman’s face.

_JAIME RODRIGUEZ turns round with a shrill cackle._

_Trotaconventos_ (_chuckling_): A good, honest blow, Sister Pilar! But as

the proverb says, the abbot dines off his singing, and of its own accord

the pot does not fill itself with stew. Howbeit, Sister Pilar, who laughs

last laughs on the right side of his mouth. Well, ladies, shall we to the

parlour? A ship from Tunis has lately come in, and one from Alexandria,

and one from Genoa, and they tell me I was born under Liber with the

moon in the ascendant, and that draws me ever to the water’s edge, and

sailors have merry kind hearts and bring me toys, and, it may be, there

will be that among them that will take your fancy.

_First Nun_: We have been burning to know what was hid in your pack

to-day.

_Third and Second Nun_: To the parlour! To the parlour!

_All except SISTER PILAR and JAIME RODRIGUEZ walk towards the

convent. SISTER PILAR goes on reading. JAIME RODRIGUEZ comes up

to her and timidly sits down beside her. Silence._

_Jaime Rodriguez_ (_in a constrained voice_): I am to read mass to the

pilgrims before they start for Guadalupe.

_Sister Pilar_ (_absently_): I should like to go on pilgrimage.

_Jaime Rodriguez_: Perhaps ... if ... why do you never go then?

_Sister Pilar_ (_smiling a little sadly_): Because I want to keep my

own dream of a pilgrimage—nothing but mountains and rivers and seas and

visions and hymns to Our Lady.

_Jaime Rodriguez_: I fear there are other things as well: fleas and dust,

and tumblers and singers, and unseemly talk.

_Sister Pilar_: Hence I’d liefer go on pilgrimage by the road of my own

dreams. (_Passionately_) Oh, these other things, small and pullulating

and fertile, and all of them the spawn of sin! One cannot be rid of them.

Why, even in the Books of Hours, round the grave Latin psalms the monks

must needs draw garlands and butterflies and hawks and hounds; and we

nuns powder our handiwork—the copes and vestments for the mass—not with

such meet signs as crosses and emmies, but with swans and true-love knots

and birds and butterflies ... (_she breaks off, half laughing_). I would

have things plain and grave.

_Jaime Rodriguez_ (_impatiently_): Yes, yes, but you are forgetting

that Nature is the mirror in which is reflected the thoughts of God;

hence, to the discerning eye, there is nothing mean and trivial, but

everything, everything, is a page in the great book of the Passion and

the Redemption. For him who has learned to read that book, the Martyrs

bleed in roses and in amethysts, the Confessors keep their council in

violets, and in lilies the Virgins are spotless—not a spray of eglantine,

not a little ant, but is a character in the book of Nature. Why, without

first reading it, the holy fathers could not crack a little nut; it

is the figure of Christ, said Adam of Saint-Victor—its green husk is

His humanity, its shell the wood of the Cross, its kernel the heavenly

nourishment of the Host. Nay, daughter, I tell you....

_Sister Pilar_: Yes, yes, but do you verily believe the nun with her

needle, the clerk with his brush, wots anything of these hidden matters?

Nay, it is nought but vanity. Oh! these multitudinous seeds of vanity

that lie broadcast in every soul, in every mote of sunshine, in every

acre of the earth! There is no soul built of a substance so closely knit

but that it has crannies wherein these seeds find lodging; and, ere you

can say a pater, lo! they are bourgeoning! ’Tis like some church that

stands four-square to the winds and sun so long as folk flock there to

pray; then comes a rumour that the Moors are near, and the folks leave

their homes and fly; and then, some day, they may return, and they

will find the stout walls of their church all starred with jessamine,

intagliated with ivy, that eat and eat until it crumbles to the ground.

So many _little_ things ... everywhere! And our thoughts ... say it be

the Passion of Our Lord we choose for contemplation; at first, all is

well, the tears flow, ’tis almost as if we smelled the sweat and dust of

the road to Calvary ... and then, after a little space, we stare around

bewildered, and know that our minds have broken into scores of little

bright thoughts, like the margins of the Hours, and then ...

_Jaime Rodriguez_: Yes, daughter, but I tell you you should obtain the

key to the Creation; read St. Ambrose’s _Hexæmeron_, and thus school

your mind by figures for the naked types of Heaven; there every house

will be a church, its hearth an altar on which, no longer hid under the

species of bread and wine, Jesus Christ will be for ever enthroned. And

its roof will be supported not by pillars carved into the semblance of

the Patriarchs and Apostles, but by the Patriarchs ... oh, yes, and the

housewife’s store of linen will all be corporals, and her plate ... you

are smiling!

_Sister Pilar_: How happy you must have been playing with your toys

when you were a child! I can see you with an old wine-keg for an altar,

a Moor’s skull for a chalice, and a mule’s discarded shoe for a pyx,

chanting meaningless words, and rating the other children if their wits

wandered ... but ... you are angry?

_Jaime Rodriguez_ (_rising in high dudgeon_): Aye, ever mocking! Methinks

... I cannot call to mind ever reading that holy women of old mocked

their confessors.

_He walks across the court to the door at the side. SISTER

PILAR sits on for some minutes in a reverie, then rises, and

goes and tends the plants round the fountain, so that she is

not visible to any one entering the court from the convent.

Enter from the convent TROTACONVENTOS and SISTER ASSUMCION._

_Trotaconventos_: As to hell-fire, my dear, you’ll meet with many a

procuress and bawd in Paradise, for we have a mighty advocate in St. Mary

Magdalene, who was of our craft. And as to the holy life, why, when your

hams begin to wither and your breasts to sag, then cast up your eyes

and draw as long an upper lip as a prioress at a bishop’s visitation. A

sinful youth and a holy old age—thus do we both enjoy the earth and win

to Paradise hereafter. Well, my sweeting, all is in train—I’d eat some

honey, it softens the voice; and repeat the _in Temerate_ and the _De

Profundis_, for old wives say they are wonderful lucky prayers in all

such business, and ... well, I think that is all. Be down at the orchard

wall at nine o’clock to-night, and trust the rest to what the Moors call

the ‘great procuress’—Night.

_Exit TROTACONVENTOS. SISTER PILAR appears from behind the

fountain. She and SISTER ASSUMCION stare at each other in

silence for a few seconds, SISTER PILAR coldly, SISTER

ASSUMCION defiantly._

SCENE II

_Scene the same. Time: Afternoon of the same day. SISTER

PILAR is hearing JUANITO’S and PEPITA’S lessons._

_Pepita_: Says St. John the Evangelist:

In Jesus Christ I do believe,

In guise of bread we Him perceive,

The Father’s side he ne’er does leave Son Eternal.

_Juanito_: Says St. Philip:

Down into Hell he did descend

The gates of which....

SISTER PILAR: No, no, Juanito. That does not come for a long time.

_Pepita_: I remember; let _me_ say.

Says St. James:

The Holy Ghost did Him conceive——

_Juanito_: ’Tis my part she is saying—’tis my part.

Says St. James ... oh, I can’t remember!

May we go on to the Seven Deadly Sins? I like them much the best.

Beware of Lust—King David once....

_Sister Pilar_: Juanito, dear, you must not look upon this exercise as

a game. It is the doctrine of Holy Mother Church. It is your pilgrim’s

staff and not a light matter. Let us begin again.

_Juanita_: Oh, I am so weary! The sun’s so hot. My head seems as if

to-day it could not hold Creeds and such matters. Prithee, Sister Pilar,

will you not read to us?

_Pepita_: Yes! Yes! From the Chronicle of Saint Ferdinand.

_Sister Pilar_: Oh, children, you have been at your tasks scarce quarter

of an hour.

_Children_: Prithee, dear Sister Pilar! We were both bled this morning.

_Sister Pilar_: I fear I am a fond and foolish master. Well, so be it.

(_She opens a large folio._) Let me see....

_Pepita_: ’Twas at the fall of Seville that you left off yesterday.

_Juanito_: Yes, and that old Moor had yielded up the keys.

_Sister Pilar_: This is the place. “Now one of the keys was of so pure

a silver that it seemed to be white, and in places it was gilded, and

it was of a very notable and exquisite workmanship. In length it was

the third of a cubit. Its stem was hollow and delicately turned, and it

ended in a ball inlaid with divers metals. Round its guards in curious

characters was engraved: God will open, the King will enter. The circle

of its ring contained an engraved plaque like to a medal, embossed with

flowers and leaves. And in the centre of the hole was a little plaque

threaded with a delicately twisted cord, and the ring was joined to

the stem by a cube of gold on the four sides of which were embossed

alternately lions and castles. And on the edge of its bulk, between

delicately inlaid arabesques, there was written, in Hebrew words and

Hebrew characters, the same motto as that on the guards, which is in

Latin—‘Rex Regium aperiet: Rex universæ terræ introibit’—the King of

Kings will open, the King of all the earth will enter. Some say the

key and the whole incident is a symbol of the Host being lain in the

custodia.”

_Juanito_: Oooh! It must have been a rare fine key. When I’m a man, may I

have such a key?

_Sister Pilar_: I sadly fear, Juanito, that ’tis only to saints that such

keys are given. Think you, you’ll be a saint some day?

_Juanito_: Not I! They live on lentils and dried peas. I’ll be a tumbler

at the fairs. Already I can stand on my head ... (_catching Pepita’s

eye_) nearly.

_Pepita_: Pooh! Any babe could stand on their head if some one held their

legs.

_Juanito_ (_crestfallen and anxious to change the subject_): Could St.

Ferdinand stand on his head?

_Pepita_ (_much shocked_): For shame, Juanito! Sister Pilar has told us

he was a great saint!

_Juanito_: How great a one?

_Sister Pilar_: A very great one.

_Juanito_: What did he do?

_Sister Pilar_: Well, he had a great devotion for Our Lady and the

Eucharist. He founded many convents and monasteries....

_Pepita_: Did he found ours?

_Sister Pilar_: It was founded during his reign.

_Pepita_: How long ago did he live?

_Sister Pilar_: More than a hundred years ... when your

great-great-grandfather was living.

_Pepita_: There must have been many a nun lived here since then!

_Juanito_: How many? A hundred?

_Sister Pilar_: More.

_Juanito_: A thousand?

_Sister Pilar_: Maybe.

_Juanito_: A million?

_Sister Pilar_: Nay, not quite a million.

_Juanito_: Think you, they’d like to be alive again?

_Sister Pilar_: Ah! no.

_Juanito_: Why?

_Sister Pilar_: Because either they are in Paradise or will go there soon.

_Juanito_: Do all nuns go to Paradise?

_Sister Pilar_: I ... er ... I hope so.

_Juanito_: Will you go?

_Sister Pilar_: I hope so.

_Juanito_: Will Sister Assumcion go?

_Sister Pilar_: I hope so.

_JUANITO is silent for a second or two, then he begins to

laugh._

_Juanito_: All those nuns, and when they die new ones coming! Why, it’s

like Don Juan Tenorio springing up again in our game!

_Pepita_ (_extremely shocked_): Oh, Juanito!

_Juanito_: Well, and so it is! And old Domingo says that his ghost tries

o’ nights to steal the live nuns, but the dead ones beat him back.

_Pepita_: Yes, and it’s Don Juan that makes the flowers and the corn

grow, and that’s what the game is that Domingo taught us.

_Juanito_: Let me sing it!

_Pepita_: No, me!

_Sister Pilar_: Children! Children! This is all foolish and evil talk. It

is God, as you know well, that makes the corn grow. You should not listen

to old Domingo.

_Juanito_: Oh, but he tells us fine tales of Roland and Belermo and the

Moorish king that rode on a zebra.... I like them better than the lives

of the Saints. Come, Pepita, let’s go and play.

_They pick up their balls and run off and begin tossing them

against one of the walls of the court._

_Sister Pilar_ (_musing_): They too ... they too ... pretty flowers

and butterflies upon the margin of the hours that catch one’s eye and

fancy.... Pretty brats of darkness ... and yet Juanito is only five

and is floating still, a little Moses, on the waters of Baptism. Soft

wax ... but where is the impress of the seal of the King of Kings? He

is a pigmy sinner, and albeit the vanities pursued by him are tiny

things—balls and sweetmeats and pagan stories—still are they vanities,

and with his growth will they grow. Jesus! My nightmare vision! Sin,

sin, sin everywhere! Babes turn hideous. Dead birds caught by the fowler

and turned into his deadliest snares. The fiends of hell shrink to their

stature and ape their innocence and serious eyes; and how many virgins

that the love of no man could have lured, have, through longing for

children, been caught in concupiscence? Oh, sin and works of darkness, I

am so weary of you!

_Beyond the wall a jovial male voice is heard singing_:

Derrière chez mon père

Il est un bois taillis,

Serai-je nonnette, oui ou non?

Serai-je nonnette, je crois que non!

Le rossignol y chante,

Et le jour et la nuit,

Il chante pour les filles

Qui n’ont pas d’ami.

Il ne chante pas pour moi

J’en ai un, Dieu merci,

Serai-je nonnette, oui ou non?

Serai-je nonnette, je crois que non!

_Enter DENNYS, disguised as a mendicant friar._

_Dennys_: Christ, and His Mother, and all the Saints be with you,

daughter. Whew! Your porter’s a lusty-sinewed rogue, and he was loath to

let me enter, saying that he and the maid he’s courting were locked up

in a church by one of my order and not let out till he had paid toll of

all that he had in his purse (_throws back his head and laughs_), and I

asked him if the maid lost something too, but....

_Sister Pilar_ (_very coldly_): What is your pleasure, brother?

_Dennys_: My pleasure? Need you ask that of a mendicant friar? Why, my

pleasure is the grease of St. John of the golden beard, the good sweat

of gold coins—that is my pleasure. “Nothing for myself, yet drop it into

the sack,” as your proverb has it. And, in truth, ’tis by the sweat

of our brow that we, too, live; oh, we are most learned and diligent

advocates, and, though we may skin our clients’ purses, down to robbing

them of their mule and stripping them of their cloak, yet we are tireless

in their cause, appealing from court to court till we reach the Supreme

Judge and move Him to set free our poor clients, moaning in the dungeons

of Purgatory. There is no cause too feeble for my pleading; by my

prayers a hundred stepmothers, fifty money-lenders, eighty monks, and

twenty-five apostate nuns have won to Paradise; so, daughter if you will

but ... (_catches sight of PEPITA and JUANITO who have stolen up, and

are listening to him open-mouthed_) Godmorrow, lord and lady! I wonder

... has this poor friar any toy or sugar-plum to please little lords and

ladies? (_PEPITA and JUANITO exchange shy, excited looks, laugh and hang

their heads._) Now, my hidalgo, tell me would you liefer have a couple of

ripe figs or two hundred years off Purgatory? (_He winks at SISTER PILAR,

who has been staring at him with a cold surprise._)

_Pepita_ (_laughing and blushing_): I’d like to see the figs before I

answer.

_Dennys_ (_with a loud laugh_): Well answered, Doña Doubting Thomas

(_turning to SISTER PILAR_). You Spaniards pass at once for the most

doubting and the most credulous of the nations. You believe every word

of your priest and doubt every word of your neighbour. Why, I remember

... may I sit down, daughter?... I remember once at Avila....

_Pepita_: You have not yet shown us these two figs.

_Dennys_: No, nor I have! As your poor folk say, “One ‘take’ is worth a

score of ‘I’ll gives.’” Give me your balls. (_He makes cabalistic signs

over them._) There now, they are figs, and brebas at that! What, you

don’t believe me? (_noticing their disappointed faces._) It must be at

the next meeting, little lord and lady. Half a dozen for each of you, my

word as a tr—— as a friar. But you must not let me keep you from your

business ... I think you have business with a ball, over at that wall

yonder?

_Pepita and Juanito_: Come and play with us.

_Dennys_: No, no, it would not suit my frock. Another day, maybe. Listen,

get you to your game of ball, but watch for the Moor who may come

swooping down on you like this (_He catches them up in his arms, they

laughing and struggling_): fling them over his shoulders as it were a bag

of chestnuts. Then hie for the ovens of Granada! (_He trots them back to

the wall, one perched on either shoulder._) Now, my beauties, you busy

yourselves with your ball and expect the Moor. But mind! He’ll not come

if you call out to him. (_He returns to the bewildered SISTER PILAR._)

I think that will keep them quiet and occupied a little space. Well, I

suppose your sisters are having their _siesta_ and dreaming of ... I’ll

sit here a little space if I may, your court is cool and pleasant.

(_Pause._)

_Dennys_ (_looking at her quizzically_): So all day long you sit and

dream and sing the Hours.

_Sister Pilar_ (_coldly_): And is that not the life of a religious in

your country?

_Dennys_: And so my tongue has betrayed my birth? Well, it is the Judas

of our members. But I am not ashamed of coming from beyond the Pyrenees.

And as to the life of a religious in France—what with these roving knaves

that call themselves “companions” and make war on every man, and every

woman, too, and the ungracious Jacquerie that roast good knights in the

sight of their lady wife and children, and sack nunneries and rape the

nuns, why the Hours are apt to be sung to an un-gregorian tune. And then

the followers of the Regent slaying the followers of the Provost of Paris

in the streets....

_Sister Pilar_: Oh, the hate of kings and dukes and desperate wicked

men! Were such as they but chained, there might be room for peace and

contemplation.

_Dennys_: The hate of kings and dukes and desperate wicked men! But,

daughter, the next best thing to love is hate. ’Tis the love and hate

of dead kings and lovely dead Infantas has filled the garden-closes

with lilies and roses, and set men dipping cloths in crimson dye, and

broidering them in gold, and breaking spears in jousts and tourneys ...

that love and hate that never dies, but is embalmed in songs and ballads,

and....

_Sister Pilar_: Brother, you are pleading the cause of sin.

_Dennys_: It has no need of my pleading, lady. Why, I know most of the

cots and castles between here and the good town of Paris. I have caught

great, proud ladies at rere-supper in their closets, drinking and jesting

and playing on the lute with clerks and valets, and one of them with his

hand beneath her breast, while her lord snored an echo to the hunter’s

horn that rang through the woods of his dreams; and in roadside inns I

have met little, laughing nuns, who....

_Sister Pilar_ (_rising_): You speak exceeding strangely for a friar, nor

is it meet I should hear you out.

_Dennys_: Nay, daughter, pardon my wild tongue; the tongue plays ever ape

to the ear, and if the ear is wont to hear more ribald jests than paters,

why then the tongue betrays its company ... nay, daughter, before you

go, resolve me this: _what is sin?_ To my thinking ’tis the twin-sister

of virtue, and none but their foster-mother knows one from t’other. Are

horses and tourneys and battles sin? Your own St. James rides a great

white charger and leads your chivalry against the Moors. (_With a sly

wink_) I have met many an hidalgo who has seen him do it! And we are told

there was once an angelic war in Heaven, and I ween the lists are ever

set before God’s throne, and the twelve Champions, each with an azure

scarf, break lances for a smile from Our Lady. And as to rich, strange

cloths and jewels, the raiment of your painted wooden Seville virgins

would make the Queen of France herself look like a beggar maid. And is

love sin? The priests affirm that God is love. Tell me then, daughter,

what is the birth-mark of the twin-sister sin that we may know and shun

her?

_Sister Pilar_ (_in a very low voice_): Death.

_Dennys_: Death? (_half to himself_). Yes, I have seen it at its work ...

that flaunting, wanton page at Valladolid, taunting the old Jew doctor

because ere long all his knowledge of herbs and precious stones would

not keep him sweet from the worm, and ere the week was done the pretty

page himself cold and blue and stiff, and all the ladies weeping. And

the burgher’s young wife at Arras, a baby at each breast, and her good

man, his merry blue eyes twinkling, crying, “Oh, my wife is a provident

woman, Dennys, and has laid up two pairs of eyes and four hands and

four strong legs and two warm hearts against her old age and mine” ...

then how he laughed! And ere the babies had cut their first tooth it was

violets and wind-flowers she was nourishing.... Ay, Death ... when I was

a child I mind me, and still sometimes, as I grow drowsy in my bed, my

fancies that have been hived all day begin to swarm—buzzing, stinging,

here, there, everywhere ... then they take shape, and start marching

soberly two and two, bishops and monks, and yellow-haired squires, and

little pert clerks, and oh, so many lovely ladies—those ladies that we

spoke of, who being dead have yet a thousand lives in the dreams of folk

alive—Dame Venus, Dame Helena, the slave-girl Briseis, Queen Iseult,

Queen Guinevere, the Infanta Polyzene; and, although they weep sorely and

beat with their hands, a herald Moor shepherds them to the dance of the

grisly King, who, having danced a round with each of them, hurls them

down into a black pit ... down which I, too, shortly fall ... to come up

at the other side, like figures on Flemish water-clocks, at the birds

matins.

_Sister Pilar_ (_in an awed voice_): Why ... ’tis strange ... but I, too,

fall asleep thus!

_Dennys_ (_shaking his finger at her_): For shame, daughter, for the

avowal! It tells of rere-suppers of lentils and _manjar-blanca_ in the

dorter, or, at least, of faring too fatly in the frater ... what if I

blab on you to the Archbishop? Well, this is a piteous grave discourse! I

had meant to talk to you of Life, and lo! I have talked of Death.

_PEPITA and JUANITO come running up._

_Pepita_: We waited and waited, but the Moor _never_ came!

_Dennys_ (_gazing at them in bewilderment_): The Moor? What Moor ...

Don Death’s trumpeter? Why, to be sure! Beshrew me for a wool-gatherer!

It was this way: as he was riding forth from the gate of Elvira he was

stricken down with colic by Mahound, because in an _olla_ made him by his

Christian slave he had unwittingly eaten of the flesh of swine.

_The children shriek with laughter._

_Juanito_: Oh, you are such a funny man! Isn’t he, Sister Pilar? But you

must come and play with us now.

_Dennys_: Well, what is the sport to be?

_Juanito_: Bells of Sevilla ... ’tis about Don Juan Tenorio.

_Pepita_: But Sister Pilar will never dance, and it takes a big company.

_Juanito_: We’ll play it three. When we reach the word “grave” we all

fall down flop. Come!

_They take hands and dance round, singing_:

Bells of Sevilla, Carmona, and all

Toll, toll, as we carry the pall

(Weep, doñas, weep.)

For Don Juan the fairy

(Chant _miserere_.)

The lovely and brave

Is cold in his grave.

_They fall down._

_Juanito_: But we have none to sing the last _copla_ for us that we may

spring up again. _Dear_ Sister Pilar, couldn’t you _once_?

_She smilingly shakes her head._

_Dennys_: Come, daughter, be merciful.

_Her expression hardens and she again shakes her head. In the

meantime, SISTER ASSUMCION has come up unobserved, and suddenly

in a clear, ringing voice, she begins to sing_:

Into the earth, priest, lower the bier,

The glory of Seville is withered and sere

(Weep, doñas, weep.)

But Don Juan Tenorio

(Carol the _gloria_.)

With a caper so brave

Leaps up from the grave.

_They all jump up laughing. DENNYS stares at SISTER ASSUMCION

with a bold and, at the same time, dazzled admiration. The

sun seems suddenly to shine more brightly upon them and the

children. SISTER PILAR is in the shadow._

SCENE III

_Nine o’clock in the evening of the same day. The convent’s

orange orchard. From the chapel is wafted the voices of the

nuns singing Compline. A horse whinnies from the other side of

the orchard wall._

_Don Manuel de Lara_ (_who all through this scene is at the other side of

the wall and hence invisible_): Whist! Muza! Whist, my beauty! (_sings_):

Ave Maria gloriosa

Virgen Santa, preciosa,

Cómo eres piadosa

Todavía!

_SISTER ASSUMCION enters as he sings and walks hurriedly

towards the wall._

SISTER ASSUMCION (_sings_):

Gracia plena, sin mancilla,

Abogada,

Por la tu merced, Señora,

Faz esta maravilla

Señalada.

_Don Manuel de Lara_ (_quickly and tonelessly, as if repeating a

lesson_): Oh, disembodied voice! Like the cuckoo’s, you tell of enamelled

meads watered by fertile streams and of a myriad small hidden beauties

that in woods and mountains the spring keeps sheltered from men’s eyes.

_Sister Assumcion_ (_laughing softly_): Sir knight, howbeit I have never

till this moment heard your voice, yet I can tell ’tis not an instrument

tuned to these words.

_Don Manuel de Lara_: A pox on _trovares_ and clerks, and the French

Courts of Love.... I’ll trust to the union of the moon and my own hot

blood to find me words!

_Sister Assumcion_ (_mockingly_): The moon’s a cold dead mare, is your

blood a lusty enough stallion to beget ought on _her_?

_Don Manuel de Lara_ (_with an impatient exclamation_): I’ve not come to

weave fantastic talk like serenading Moors. All I would say can be said

in the Old Christians’ Castilian.

_Sister Assumcion_: Well, sir knight, speak to me then in Castilian.

(_Pause._)

_Don Manuel de Lara_ (_slowly and deliberately_): So you have come to the

tryst.

_Sister Assumcion_: So it would seem.

(_Pause._)

_Don Manuel de Lara_ (_as if having come to a sudden resolution_):

Listen, lady. I am no carpet knight, dubbed with a jester’s bladder

at a rere-supper of infantas. I won my spurs when I was fourteen at

the Battle of Salado. Since then I have been in sieges and skirmishes

and night-alarms, enough to dint ten coats of mail. And because there

is great merit in fighting the Moors, I have permitted myself to sin

lustily. I have even lain with the daughters of Moors and Jews, for which

I went on foot to Compostella and did sore penance, for it is a heavy

sin, and the one that brought in days gone by the flood upon the earth.

But never have I sinned with the wife or daughter or kinswoman of my

over-lord, or with one of the brides of Christ. I am from Old Castille,

and I cannot forget my immortal soul. But I verily believe that old witch

Trotaconventos has laid a spell upon me; for she has so inflamed my

blood with her talk of your eyes, your lashes, your small white teeth,

your scarlet lips and gums, your breasts, your flanks, your ankles ...

oh, I know well the tune to which old bawds trumpet their wares; and man

is so fashioned as to be swayed by certain words that act on him like

charms—such as “breasts,” “hips,” “lips”—and must as surely burn at the

naming of them as a hound must prick his ears and bay at the sound of a

distant horn, but it is but with a small, wavering flame, soon quenched,

with a “no, no, gutter-crone, none of your scurvy, worm-eaten goods for

me!” But when the old witch talked of you, ’twas with the honeyed tongue

of Pandar himself, the same that stole from the good Knight, Troilus, all

manliness and pride of arms. And she has strangely stirred my dreams ...

they are ever of scaling towers and mining walls; but, although dreaming,

I know well the towers are not of stone, nor the mines dug in earth ...

lady ... I think I am sick ... I——

_Sister Assumcion_ (_frightened_): What ails the man? ... but ...

Trotaconventos ... I had not thought ... ’tis all so strange....

_Don Manuel de Lara_ (_solemnly_): Why did you come to the postern

to-night, Sister Assumcion?

_Sister Assumcion_ (_angrily_): Why did I come? A pretty question! I came

because of the exceeding importunities of Trotaconventos, who said you

lay sick for love of me.

_Don Manuel de Lara_ (_low, sternly_): You are the bride of Christ. Is

your profession a light thing?

_Sister Assumcion_ (_shrilly_): Profession? Much wish I had to be

professed! I do not know who my mother was nor who my father. I was

reared by the priest of a little village near the Moorish frontier. He

was good-natured enough so long as the parishioners were regular with

their capons and sucking-pigs laid on the altar for the souls of the

dead, but all he cared for was sport with his greyhound and ferret,

and they said he hadn’t enough Latin to say the _Consecration_ aright,

and that the souls of his parishioners were in dire peril through his

tongue tripping and stumbling over the office of Baptism, so ’twas little

respect for religion that I learned in his house. And so little did I

dream of being professed a nun that though the fear of the Moors lay

black over the village, and the other maids could not go to fill their

pitchers at the well or take the goatherds their midday bread and garlic

without their hearts trembling like a bird, yet as to me I never tired

of hearing the tale of the Infanta Proserpine, who, as she was weaving

garlands in her father’s garden, was stolen by the Moorish king, Pluton;

and I would pray, yes, pray at the shrine of Our Lady on the hill to lull

my guardian-angel asleep and sheath his sword, and on that very day to

send a fine Moorish knight in a crimson _marlota_ and armour glittering

in the sun, clattering down the bridle-path to carry me off to Granada,

where, if it had meant a life of ease and pleasure, I would gladly have

bowed down before the gold and marble Mahound.

_Don Manuel de Lara_: How came you, then, to take the veil?

_Sister Assumcion_ (_bitterly_): Through no choice of my own. When I was

twelve, the priest said he had law business in Seville, and asked me if

I’d like to go with him. If I’d like to go with him! It was my dream to

see Seville, and I had made in my fancy a silly, simple picture—a town

which was always a great fair, stall upon stall of bright, glittering

merchandise, and laughter and merriment, and tumblers and dancers,

threaded with a blue river upon which ships with silken sails and

figureheads of heathen gods, laden with lords and ladies, and painted

birds that talked, were ever sailing up and down, and all small and very

brightly coloured, like the pictures in a merry lewd book of fables by an

old Spanish _trovar_, Ovid, for which my priest cared more than for his

breviary. And oh, the adventures that were to wait me there! Well, we set

out, I riding behind him on his mule ... if I shut my eyes it all comes

back as if it were but yesterday.... I jolted and sore and squeamish from

my nearness to him, as his linen was as foul as were the corporals in

his Church ... then the band of merchants and their varlets we travelled

with for greater safety on the road.... It was bicker, bicker all the

time between them and my priest ... each time we came to a bridge it was,

“Nay, sir priest, we’ll not let you across for you and your cloth pay

naught to their building and upkeep,” and then.... Oh, ’twas a tedious

journey, and took the heart out of me. Well, we reached Seville towards

dusk ... a close, frowning, dirty town, in truth, nought but a Morisco

settlement such as we had at home—the houses all blank and grim like dead

faces, and oh! the stink of dogs’ corpses! And not a soul to be seen for

fear of the Guzmans and the Ponces.... And yet I’d catch the whiff of

orange-flowers across the walls, and I heard a voice singing the ballad,

_Count Arnaldo_, to the lute ... ’tis strange, these two things, whiffs

of orange-flower at night and the _Count Arnaldo_ ... it has ever been

the same with me, they turn the years to come to music and perfume ...

or, rather, ’tis as if the years had come and gone, and already I was

old and dreaming them back again. Well, albeit like a pious little maid,

I had said a Pater and Ave for the parents of St. Julian that he might

send me a good lodging, ’twas to the house of Trotaconventos the priest

took me that night, and it seemed to me indeed an evil house and she a

witch, and I never closed my eyes all night. Next morning she brought me

here, and after that night, what with its cool dorter and frater, and its

_patio_ and gardens, it seemed like the castle of Rocafrida—the fairy

houses in ballads; and whether I would or not I became a novice ... a

dowerless novice without clothes or furniture, and never a coin even to

give the servants at Christmas ... and then ... what would you? Once a

novice ’tis wellnigh impossible to ’scape the black veil (_her tone once

more bantering_). And that’s the end of the story, and may the good

things that come be for all the shire. Did the daughters of the Moors and

Jews tell you such prosy tales?

(_Pause._)

_Don Manuel de Lara_: You have not yet told me why you came to the

postern to-night.

_Sister Assumcion_ (_in a voice where archness tries to conceal

embarrassment_): Why, you must be one of the monkish knights of Santiago!

I feel like a penitent in the Confessional ... _mea culpa, mea culpa, mea

maxima culpa_, aha! aha!

_Don Manuel de Lara_ (_very solemnly_): I will know. Did that old witch

in mandragora or henbane, or whatever be the hellish filters that hold

the poison of love, pour _me_ hurtling and burning through your veins as

you were poured through mine?

_Sister Assumcion_: Jesus!... I ... she did indeed please my fancy with

the picture that she drew of you ... but come, sir knight! You forget I

have not yet seen your face, much less....

_Don Manuel de Lara_ (_slowly_): So on a cold stomach, through caprice

and a little _accidia_ you were ready to forfeit eternal bliss and ... I

will not mince my words ... make Our Lord Jesus Christ a cuckold?

_Sister Assumcion_: Well, of all the strange talk! I vow, Sir Knight,

it is as if you blamed me for coming to the tryst. Have you forgotten

how for weeks you did importune that old witch with prayers and vows and

tears and groans that she should at least contrive I should hold speech

with you to give you a little ease of your great torment? And what’s

more, ’tis full six weeks since you began plaguing me by proxy; at least,

I have not failed in coyness.

_Don Manuel de Lara_: True, lady, I ask your pardon. Why should I blame

you for my dreams? (_half to himself_) a phantom fire laying waste a

land of ghosts and shadows ... then a little wind wafting the smell of

earthly things ... wet flowers and woods ... its wings dropping wholesome

rain and lo! the fantastic flames with dying hisses vanish in the smoke

that kindled them.... Lips? Lashes? Haunches? I spoke foolishly; they

are not enough. How can I tell my dreams? (_his voice grows wild_). Lips

straining towards lips against the pulling back of all the hosts of

Heaven ... a sin so grave as to be own sister to virtue ... oh! sweetness

coming out of horror ... once my horse’s hoofs crushed a seven years’ old

Moorish maid ... ooh!

_During the last words, SISTER PILAR has crept up unperceived._

_Sister Pilar_: Sister, I missed you at Compline.

_Sister Assumcion_: Indeed! And in the interval have you been made

prioress or sub-prioress?

_Sister Pilar_: Sister Assumcion, this is not the time for idle taunts. I

cannot say I love you, and in this I know I err, for no religious house

can flourish except Sisters Charity, Meekness, and Peace are professed

among its nuns. But I came for the honour of this house.... God knows

its scutcheon is blotted enough ... have you forgotten Sister Isabel?...

believe me I _must_ speak; it would go ill with me were I to see a sister

take horse for hell and not catch hold of the bridle, nay, fling my body

underneath the hoofs, if that could stop the progress.

_Sister Assumcion_: And what is all this tedious prose? Because,

forsooth, feeling faint at Compline, I crept out to take the evening air.

_Sister Pilar_: You lie, sister. Think you I am deaf? As I drew near a

man’s voice reached me from the other side of the wall. (_Raising her

voice._) Most impious of all would-be adulterers, know that your banns

will be forbidden by the myriad voices of the Church Militant, the Church

Triumphant, _and_ the Church in Torment. For she (and all nuns do so),

who through the watches of the night prays for the dead, raises up a

ghostly bodyguard to fight for her virginity. Beware of the dead! They

hedge this sister round.

_Sister Assumcion_ (_shrilly_): You canting, white-lipped, sneering

witch! You whose breasts are no bigger than a maid of twelve! You ... you

... this talk comes ill from you ... do you think me blind? Oh, Sister

Vanity, what of your veil drawn down so modestly to your eyes in frater

or in chapter, but when there are lay visitors in the parlour, or even

Don Jaime gossiping in the _patio_, have I not seen that same veil creep

up and up, till it reveals the broad, white brow? Oh, and the smile

hoarded like a miser’s gold that when at last it is disclosed all may the

more marvel at the treasure of small, white teeth! Oh, swan who loves

solitude but who, of all birds, is the most swayed by the music of ...

mendicant friars!

_Sister Pilar_: Silence!

_Sister Assumcion_: Aha! That shaft went home! What of the Deadly Sins

grimacing behind the masks of the virtues? Why do you hate me so? Well,

I will tell you. ’Tis the work of our old friend of the Catechism—Envy,

the jaundiced, sour-breathed Don. Remember, Sister Pilar: Thou shalt not

envy thy sister’s flanks, nor her merry tongue, nor her red lips, nor any

of her body’s members. Over my shoulder to-day, I saw the look with which

you followed the friar and me.

_Sister Pilar_ (_in a voice choked with passion_): Silence! you peasant’s

bastard! You who have crept into a house of high born ladies and made

it stink with as rank a smell as though a goat had laid down among Don

Pedro’s Arab mares. Poor mummer! From a little, red-cheeked, round-eyed

peasant girl, I have seen you moulding yourself to the pattern of our

high-born visitors—from one the shrill laugh, from another the eyes

blackened with kohl, from a third the speech flowery from _Amadis_ and

other profane books—but all the civet and musk your fancy pours on

your image of yourself cannot drown the peasant’s garlic. You flatter

yourself, Sister Assumcion; _I_, a Guzman, whose mother was a Perez, and

grandame a Padilla, how could I for a second envy _you_?

_Sister Assumcion_ (_laughing_): But peasant’s blood can show red in the

lips and gums, and a bastard’s breasts can be as full and firm, her limbs

as long and slender as those of a Guzman or a Padilla. Your rage betrays

you, Sister Pilar. I bid you good-night.

_Exit._ (_Pause._)

_Sister Pilar_: My God! Envy! It has a sour smell. And rage and pride—two

other deadly sins whose smell is ranker than that of any peasant.

(_Shrilly_) Sloth! Avarice! Gluttony! Lust! Why do you linger? Your

brothers wait for you to begin the feast.

_Sinks on her knees._

Oh, heavenly advocate! Sweet Virgin of compassion, by your seven joys and

seven sorrows I beseech you to intercede for me. I have sinned, I have

sinned, my soul has become loathsome to me. Oh, Blessed Virgin, a boon, a

boon! That either by day or in the watches of the night, though it be but

for a second of time I may behold the woof of things without the warp of

sin ... a still, quiet, awful world, and all the winds asleep.

_From beyond the wall comes a small whinny, then the jingle of

spurs and the sound of departing hoofs. SISTER PILAR starts

violently._

ACT II

SCENE I

_A room in TROTACONVENTOS’S house. The walls are hung with

bunches of dried herbs and stags’ antlers. On a table stands

a big alembic surrounded by snakes and lizards preserved in

bottles, and porcupines’ quills. TROTACONVENTOS is darning a

gorget and talking to DON SALOMON. The beginning of this scene

is happening simultaneously with the last part of the previous

one._

_Trotaconventos_: A fig for a father’s love! To seek for it is, as the

proverb has it, to seek pears on an elm tree.

_Don Salomon_: Pardon me, oh pearl of wisdom. Our Law has shown that a

mother’s love is as dross to a father’s. In the book called Genesis we

are told that when there was the flood of water in the time of Noah,

the fathers fled with their sons to the mountains, and bore them on

their heads that the waters might not reach them, while the mothers took

thought only of their own safety, and climbed up on the shoulders of

their sons. And at the siege of Jerusalem....

_Trotaconventos_: Oh, a pox on you and your devil’s lore! It is proverbs

and songs that catch truth on the wing, and they tell ever of a mother’s

love. Would you have me believe in your love to Pepita and Juanito when

I saw new hopes and schemes spring up as quickly in your heart as the

flowers on Isabel’s grave.... I never yet have met a man who could mourn

the dead; for them ’tis but the drawing of a rotten molar, a moment’s

sharp pain, and then albeit their gums may ache a day, they will already

be rejoicing in the ease and freedom won by its removal.

_Don Salomon_: There was once a young caliph, and though he had many and

great possessions, the only one he valued a fig was one of his young

wives. She died, and night descended on the soul of the caliph. One

evening her spirit came to him, as firm and tangible as had been her

body, and after much sweet and refreshing discourse between them, beneath

which his grief melted like dew, she told him that he might at will evoke

her presence, but that each time he did so he would forfeit a year of

life.... He invoked her the next night, and the next, and the next ...

but he was close on eighty when he died.

_Trotaconventos_ (_triumphantly_): Just so! The caliph was a man; you do

but confirm my words.

_Don Salomon_: Well, let us consider, then, _your_ love to your children.

First, there was Isabel, and next, that exceeding handsome damsel, Sister

Assumcion ... nay, nay, it is vain protesting; the whole town knows she

was a cunning brat that all your forty summers and draughts and chirurgy

were powerless to keep out of the world ... well, these two maids, both

lusty and vegetal, and made for the bearing of fine children, what

must you do but have them both professed in one of these nunneries ...

_nunneries_! Your ballads tell of a Moorish king who was wont to exact

a yearly tribute of sixty virgins from your race; what of your God who

exacts more like a thousand?

_Trotaconventos_: Out on you, you foul-mouthed blaspheming Jew! I’d have

you bear in mind that you are in the house of an Old Christian.[2]

_Don Salomon_: Ay, an Old Christian who recked so little of her law and

faith that, just because they paid a little more, has suckled the brats

of the Moriscos![3]

_Trotaconventos_: Pooh! An old dog does not bark at a tree-stump; you’ll

not scare me with those old, spiteful whispers of _los Abades_. Come,

drag me before the _alcalde_ and his court, and I’ll disprove your words

with this old withered breast ... besides, as says the proverb, He whose

father is a judge goes safe to trial—Trotaconventos walks safe beneath

the cloak of Doña Maria de Padilla, for Queen Blanche dies a virgin-wife,

if there be any virtue in my brews.

_Don Salomon_: You took it for a threat? Come, come, you are growing

suspicious with advancing years. But we were talking of your love to your

daughters. Resolve me this: why did you make them nuns?

_Trotaconventos_: Why did I make them nuns? Because of all professions,

it is the most pleasing to God and His Saints.

_Don Salomon_: So that was your reason? Well, I read your action somewhat

differently. Of all the diverse flames that burn and corrode the heart

of man, there is none so fierce as the flames of a mother’s jealousy of

her growing daughters. You have known that flame—the years that withered

your charms were ripening theirs, and, that you might not endure the

bitterness of seeing them wooed and kissed and bedded, you gave them—to

your God. Wait! I have not yet said my say. Rumours have reached me

of the flame you have kindled in the breast of an exceeding rich and

noble knight for Sister Assumcion, and that, albeit, you knew a score of

other maids would have been as good fuel, and brought as good a price;

just as some eight years since, you chose Isabel to kindle the fire in

me. Why? Of all your so-called learned doctors—the most of them but

peasants, trembling, as they roast the chestnuts on winter nights, at

their grandame’s tales—there is one I do revere, Thomas Aquinas, for

he is deeply read in the divine Aristotle, and, to boot, he knows the

human heart. Well, your Thomas Aquinas tells of a sin which he calls

‘morose delectation,’ which is the sour pleasure—a dried olive to palates

too jaded now for sweet figs—that monks and nuns and women past their

prime find in the viewing of, or the hearing of, or the thinking of the

bodily joys of the young and lusty. And ‘morose delectation’ is never so

bitter-sweet as when aroused in a mother by the amours of her daughter,

and this it was that got in your bosom the upper hand of jealousy and

made you choose your own daughters to inflame the love of this knight and

me.

_Trotaconventos_: Well ... by Our Lady ... you ... (_bursts out

laughing_). Why, Don Salomon, in spite of all your rabbis and rubbish,

you have more good common sense than I had given you credit for! (_laughs

again_).

_DON SALOMON, in spite of himself, gives a little complacent

smile._

_Don Salomon_: Laughter is the best physic; I am glad to have been able

to administer it. But to return to the real purport of my visit. I tell

you, you are making the convent of San Miguel to stink both far and wide,

and I look upon it as no meet nursery for Moses and Rebecca.

_Trotaconventos_: Moses and Rebecca! Truly most pretty apt names for

Christian children! But think you not that Judas and Jezebel would ring

yet sweeter on the ear? Then, without doubt, their Christian playmates

would pelt them through the streets with dung and dead mice—Moses and

Rebecca, forsooth! In the city of Seville they will ever be Pepita and

Juanito.

_Don Salomon_: Pepita and Juanito ... foolish, tripping names to suit the

lewd comic imps of hell in one of your miracle plays. The Talmud teaches

there is great virtue in names, and when they come with me to Granada

they will be Moses and Rebecca.

_Trotaconventos_: Go with you to Granada? What wild tale is this?

_Don Salomon_: ’Tis no wild tale. You rated me for indifference to my

children, but I am not so indifferent as to wish to see them reared in

ignorance and superstition by a flock of empty-headed, vicious nuns who

have become like Aholah and Aholibah, they who committed whoredoms in

Egypt.

_Trotaconventos_: Once more, an old dog does not bark at a tree-stump.

_You’ll_ never go to Granada.

_Don Salomon_: And why not, star-reader?

_Trotaconventos_: Because you are of the race of Judas that sold our

Lord for a few sueldos. There are many leeches more learned than you in

Granada, but none in Castille, therefore....

_Don Salomon_ (_indignantly_): Whence this knowledge of the leeches of

Granada? Name me one more learned than I.

_Trotaconventos_ (_ignoring the interruption_): Therefore, in that in

Castille you earn three times what you would do in Granada, you will

continue following the court from Valladolid to Toledo, from Toledo to

Seville, until the day when you are unable to save Don Pedro’s favourite

slave, and he rifles your treasure and has you bound with chains and cast

into a dungeon to rot slowly into hell.

_Don Salomon_ (_quite unmoved_): Howbeit, you will see that to one of my

race his children are dearer than his coffers. Unless this convent gets

in better odour, Moses and Rebecca will soon be playing in Granada round

the Elvira gate, and sailing their boats upon the Darro ... have you that

balsam for me?

_Trotaconventos_: Ay, and have you two maravedis for it?

_Don Salomon_ (_taking out two coins from his purse_): Are you, indeed,

an Old Christian? Had you no grandam, who, like your own daughter, was

not averse to a circumcised lover? Methinks you love gold as much as any

Jew.

_Trotaconventos_ (_drops the coins on the table and listens to their

ring_): Yes, they sing in tune; a good Catholic _doremi_, I’d not be

surprised to hear coins from _your purse_ whine ‘alleluia’ falsely

through their nose—the thin noise of alloy and a false mint. (_Goes

and rummages in a coffer, and with her back turned to him, says

nonchalantly_): Neither your ointment nor the Goa stones powdered in milk

have reduced the swelling.

_DON SALOMON does not answer, and TROTACONVENTOS looks sharply

over her shoulder._

_Trotaconventos_: Well?

_He looks at her in silence. She walks over to him._

_Trotaconventos_: Here is your balsam. As touching sickness, I have ever

hearkened to you; you may speak.

_Don Salomon_: The ointment ... I hoped it might give you some relief of

your pain; but as to the swelling....

_Trotaconventos_: It will not diminish?

_Don Salomon_: No.

_Trotaconventos_: You are certain, Don Salomon?

_Don Salomon_: Yes.

_Trotaconventos_: But ... surely ... the Table of Spain, Don Pedro’s

carbuncle ... I verily believe Doña Maria could get me it for a night ...

’tis the most potent stone in the world.

_Don Salomon_: Dame, you have ever liked plain speaking. Neither in the

belly of the stag, nor in the womb of the earth, nor in God’s throne, is

there a precious stone that can decrease that swelling.

_Trotaconventos_: Can one live long with it?

_Don Salomon_: No.

_Trotaconventos_: How long?

_Don Salomon_: I cannot say to a day.

_TROTACONVENTOS sinks wearily down into a chair. DON SALOMON

gazes at her in silence for a time, then comes up and lays his

hand on her shoulder._

_Don Salomon_ (_gravely_): Old friend, from my heart I envy you. A wise

man who had travelled over all the earth came to the court of a certain

caliph, and the caliph asked him whom of all the men he had met on his

wanderings he envied most; and the wise man answered: ‘Oh, Caliph, ’twas

an old blind pauper whose wife and children were all dead.’ And when the

caliph asked him why he envied one in such sorry plight, he answered,

‘because the only evil thing is fear, and he had nought to fear.’ You,

too, have nothing to fear, except you fear the greatest gift of God—sleep.

_Exit quietly._

_Trotaconventos_ (_wildly_): Nothing to fear! Oh, my poor black soul ...

hell-fire ... the devil hiding like a bug in my shroud ... oh, Blessed

Virgin, save me from hell-fire!

_The ghost of DON JUAN TENORIO appears._

_Don Juan Tenorio_: There is no hell.

_Trotaconventos_: Who are you? Speak!

_Don Juan Tenorio_: I am the broad path that leads to salvation; I am

the bread made of wheat; I am the burgeoning of buds and the fall of the

leaf; I am the little white wine of Toro and the red wine of Madrigal;

I am the bronze on the cheek of the labourer and his dreamless, midday

sleep beneath the chestnut tree; I am the mirth at wedding-wakes; I am

the dance of the Hours whose rhythm lulls kings and beggars, nuns, and

goatherds on the hills, giving them peace, and freeing them from dreams;

I am innocence; I am immortality; I am Don Juan Tenorio.

_Trotaconventos_: Don Juan Tenorio? Then you come from hell.

_Don Juan Tenorio_: I have spoken: there is no hell. There is no hell

and there is no heaven; there is nought but the green earth. But men are

arrogant and full of shame, and they hide truth in dreams.

_Trotaconventos_: Ay, but what of the black sins that weigh down my soul?

_Don Juan Tenorio_: Dreams are the only sin.

_Trotaconventos_: What, then, of death?

_Don Juan Tenorio_: Every death is cancelled by a birth; hence there is

no death.

_Trotaconventos_: But I must surely die, and that ere long.

_Don Juan Tenorio_: But if others live? Prisoners! Prisoners! Locked up

inside yourselves; like children born in a dark tower, as their parents

were before them. And round and round they run, and beat their little

hands against the wall, or stare at the old faded arras upon which

fingers, dead a hundred years ago, have pictured quaint shapes that hint

at flowers and birds and ships. And all the time the creaking door is on

the jar, the gaolers long since dead.

_The ghost of SISTER ISABEL appears._

_Sister Isabel_: Mother!

_Trotaconventos_ (_in horror_): Isabel!

_Sister Isabel_: I come from Purgatory.

_Don Juan Tenorio_: Still a prisoner, bound by the dreams of the living.

_Sister Isabel_: As they are by the dead.

_Trotaconventos_: Why do you visit me, daughter?

_Sister Isabel_: To bid you save my little son from circumcision, my

daughter from concubinage to the infidels.

_Trotaconventos_: How?

_Sister Isabel_: By preserving the virginity of my sisters in religion.

_Don Juan Tenorio_: Virginity! What of Christ’s fig-tree?

_Sister Isabel_: Demon, what do _you_ know of Christ?

_Don Juan Tenorio_: Once we were one, but....

_Sister Isabel_: Lying spirit!

_Don Juan Tenorio_: That part of me that was he, was sucked bloodless by

the insatiable dreams of man.

_Sister Isabel_: Mother, hearken not....

_Don Juan Tenorio_: Hearken not....

_Sister Isabel_: To this lying spirit.

_Don Juan Tenorio_: To this spirit drugged with dreams.

_Sister Isabel_: Else you will forfeit....

_Don Juan Tenorio_: Else you will forfeit....

_Sister Isabel_: Your immortal soul.

_Don Juan Tenorio_: Your immortal body.

_Sister Isabel_: All is vanity,

_Don Juan Tenorio_: All is vanity.

_Sister Isabel_: Save only the death,

_Don Juan Tenorio_: Save only the death,

_Sister Isabel_: And the resurrection,

_Don Juan Tenorio_: And the resurrection,

_Sister Isabel_: Of our Lord Jesus Christ.

_Don Juan Tenorio_: Of crops and trees and flowers and the race of man.

_Sister Isabel_: Remember that they fight to lose who fight the dead.

_Don Juan Tenorio_: Remember that they fight to lose who fight the Spirit

of Life.

_A violent knocking at the door. The ghosts of DON JUAN TENORIO

and SISTER ISABEL vanish. TROTACONVENTOS sits up and rubs her

eyes._

_Trotaconventos_: I have been dreaming ... life ... death ... my head

turns. And what is this knocking?

_Voice outside_: Old stinking bird-lime! Heart-hammer! Magpie!

Bumble-bee! Street trailer! Cuirass of rotten wood! Curry-comb! Corpus

dragon! I bid you open, d’ye hear?

_Trotaconventos_: Why, I do believe ’tis that ardent lover, Don Manuel de

Lara. Can the baggage have shied from the tryst?

_Voice from outside_: Gutter crone! Gutter crone! The fiends of hell gnaw

your marrow! I want in!

_Trotaconventos_: Anon, good knight, anon! Well ... shall I throw cold

water on his hopes and save my soul? Nay, Isabel, ’tis too late; one

cannot make shepherds’ pipes out of this old barley straw ... and yet

... visions of sleep! Nay, through my living daughter will I taste again

the old joys and snap my fingers at ... ghosts.

_Opens the door. DON MANUEL DE LARA bursts into the room._

DON MANUEL DE LARA: Old hag, what have you done to me? You have been

riding among the signs of the Zodiac ... I know ... and tampering with

the Scales, putting sweetness in each, then throwing in the moon to turn

the balance. Oh, you have given me philtres ... I know, I know ... some

varlet bribed with a scarlet cloak, then strange liquid dreams curdling

the rough juice of the Spanish grape ... and you all the while jeering

and cackling at me! (_seizes her roughly by the shoulders._) How dare you

meddle with my dreams? You play with loaded dice.

_Trotaconventos_ (_soothingly_): Wo! ass! Let me rub thee down, ass of my

wife’s brother! You must have got an ague; the water of the Guadalquivir

and Seville figs play strange tricks with Castilian stomachs in May. A

little prayer to St. Bartholomew ... or better still, a very soothing

draught I learnt to brew long since from a Jew doctor. Why, sir knight,

what is this talk of love philtres? The only receipt _I_ know for such is

a gill of neat ankle or merry eye to three gills of hot young blood. And

have you no thanks for your old witch? I cannot, let evil tongues wag as

they will, drum the moon from the heavens, but trust old Trotaconventos

to draw a nun from her cloister!

_Don Manuel de Lara_ (_who has been standing as if stunned_): Aye,

there’s the rub ... I’d have the moon dragged from the heavens (_laughs

wildly, then turns upon her violently_). Oh, I’ll shake your black soul

out of its prison of rotted bones. I am encompassed all around with your

spells.

_Trotaconventos_: Don Manuel, you are sick. Lie down on this couch and

take a cool draught of reason, for it, at least, is a medicinal stream.

You have engendered your own dreams, there have been no philtres or

spells. The abbot dines off his singing, and a procuress must suit all

tastes, and if a silly serving-wench comes to me a-sighing and a-sobbing

for some pert groom with a heron’s feather in his cap, or trembling

lest Pedro in her distant village is giving his garlic-scented kisses

to another maid, why, then I know nothing will salve her red eyes but

sunflower seeds culled when Venus is in the house of the Ram, or a

mumbling backwards of the psalms, on a waxen heart to melt over the fire.

But these are but foolish toys for the vulgar, and the devil does not

reveal his secrets to an Old Christian who goes to mass every Sunday and

on feast-days too. You are not bewitched, Don Manuel, except it be by a

pair of gray eyes smiling beneath a nun’s veil. Was she coy, perchance?

Why, coyness in a maid....

_Don Manuel de Lara_ (_laughing bitterly_): Coy? (_impatiently._) I came

here all hot with projects and decision, but now it is all flowing out

of me like wine from a leaking pig-skin, and I seem bereft of will and

desire, as sometimes on the field of battle when I fight in a dream,

regardless if the issue be life or death. (_Shaking himself._) The fault

lies not with you, good dame; what you set out to do you have done, the

which I shall bear in mind. As to spells and philtres, they say I was

born under Saturn with the moon in the ascendant, and, whether it be

true or no, some evil star distills dark, poisonous vapours round the

nettles and rank roots that grow in the dark places of my soul, the which

some chance word will draw from their hiding-place and ... in plain

words, your nun is all your words painted her, but falls far short of the

lineaments lent her by my fancy; for which it is not you but that same

unbridled fancy, that is to blame. In that you compassed the meeting, you

shall have rich cloths and a well-filled purse, but....

_Trotaconventos_ (_her indignation boiling over_): Jesus! Here is a

dainty Don! Comes far short of the linen lent her by _your_ fancy! Was

then her linen foul? Or rather, are you like Alfonso the Wise, and had

you had the making of her would you have fashioned her better than God? I

know your breed; as the proverb says, it is but a fool that wants a bread

not made with wheat. In truth, the girl is well-formed, sprightly and

hot-blooded. I know no damsel can so well....

_Don Manuel de Lara_: I have told you dame, you shall be well paid for

your pains. But ... but ... there is another matter with regard to which

I would fain....

_Trotaconventos_: And so you deem old Trotaconventos cares for naught but

cloths and purses! And what of the pride in my craft? Upon my soul! My

daintiest morsel sniffed at all round, and then Don Cat, with a hump of

his back, his tail arched, and his lips drawn back in disdain....

_Don Manuel de Lara_: Come, dame, I am pressed for time. I ask your

pardon if I have been over nice, and you have no need to take umbrage for

your craft. I ... would ... would ask your help ... (_sinks into a chair

and covers his face with his hands_) ... my God, I cannot. The words

choke me.

_There is a knock at the door._

_Voice from outside_: Hola! Hecate! Goddess of the cross-roads! Open in

your graciousness.

_Trotaconventos_: ’Tis a stranger’s voice. (_Aside_) This time ’tis a

case of better the devil one does _not_ know.

_Opens the door. Enter DENNYS._

_Dennys_: Hail! Medea of Castille! Your fame has drawn me all the way

from France. Why, ’twill soon rival the fame of your St. James, and from

every corner of Christendom love-sick wights and ladies will come to you

on pilgrimage.

_Trotaconventos_ (_laughing and eyeing him with evident favour_): A pox

on your flowery tongue! I know you French of old ... hot tongues and

cold, hard hearts. Oh, you saucy knave; you! But see, your cloak is wet

with dew. Come, I will shake it for you. (_Draws off his cloak and at the

same time slips her hand down his neck and tickles him_).

_Dennys_: A truce! A truce! Thus you could unman me to yield you all my

gold and tell you all my secrets. (_Wriggles out of the cloak, leaving it

in her hands._) Do you know the ballad of the Roman knight, Joseph, and

Doña Potiphar?

_Trotaconventos_: Ay, that I do; and a poor puling ballad it is too! But

_you_ are no Sir Joseph, my pretty lad ... while others that I know ...

(_glances resentfully at DON MANUEL DE LARA, who is still sitting with

his head buried in his hands. DENNYS, following her glance, catches sight

of him._)

_Dennys_: Some poor, love-sick wight? Why, then, are we guild brothers,

and of that guild _you_ are the virgin, fairer and more potent than she

of the kings or of the waters; as with fists and cudgels we will maintain

against all other guilds at Holy Week. Oh! I have heard of your miracles.

That pious young widow with a virtue as unyielding as her body was soft,

how....

_Trotaconventos_: Out on you, you saucy Frenchman! It would take a French

tongue to call Trotaconventos a virgin. Why, before you were born ...

come, I’ll tell you a secret. (_She whispers something in his ear. He

bursts out laughing._)

_Dennys_: Holy Mother of God! You should have given suck to Don Ovid.

Why, _that_ beats all the French _fabliaux_. Well, now as to my business.

You must know I had a wager that, disguised as a mendicant friar, I would

visit undiscovered twenty of the convents of Seville....

_Trotaconventos_ (_chuckling_): A bold and merry wager!

_Dennys_: Ay, but that is but the prelude. In one of these convents (_DON

MANUEL drops his hands from his face and sits up straight in his chair_)

I fell into an ambush laid by Don Cupid himself.

_Trotaconventos_ (_bitterly_): To be sure! And so you come to old

Trotaconventos. To be a procuress is to be the cow at the wedding, for

ever sacrificed to the junketings of others. ’Tis other folks’ burdens

killed the ass. Well, the time is short, the time is short, if you want

Trotaconventos’s aid.

_Dennys_: Why, despite her habit, ’twas the fairest maid I have seen

this side the Pyrenees, and I swear ’tis a sin she should live a nun. I

fell to talking and laughing with her; but though she is a ripe plum, I

warrant, ’tis for another hand to shake the branch. Now you, mother, I

know, go in and out of every convent in Seville.... So will you be my

most cunning and subtle ambassador?

_Trotaconventos_: Ay, but ambassadors are given services of gold, and

sumpter-mules laden with crimson cloths, and retinues of servants, and

apes and tumblers and dancers, and purses of gold. How will _you_ equip

your ambassador?

_Dennys_: A _trovar’s_ fortune is his tongue and lips; so with my lips I

pay. (_He gives her three smacking kisses._)

_Trotaconventos_: Oh, you French jackanapes! Oh, you saucy ballad-monger!

So you hold your kisses weigh like _maravedis_, do you? Well, well, I

have ever said that the lips of a fine lad hold the sweetest wine in

Spain. Now you must acquaint me more fully with your business, if you

would have me speed it.

_Dennys_: Why! You know it all. I love a nun of the Convent of San

Miguel, and....

_DON MANUEL DE LARA springs from his bench and seizes him by

the shoulders._

_Don Manuel de Lara_: You scurvy, whoreson, lily-livered, shameless son

of France! _France!_ The teeming dam of whores and ballad-mongers, whose

king flies from his foes shaking a banner broidered with the lilies of

a frail woman’s garden-close. You are in Castille, where lions guard

our virgins in strong towers, and e’er you tamper with the virtue of a

professed virgin of Spain, I will hew you into little pieces to feed my

hounds. (_He shakes him violently._)

_Trotaconventos_ (_pulling him back by his cloak_): Let go, you solemn,

long-jowled, finicky Judas! You fox in priest’s habit on the silver

centre-piece of a king’s table! Don Cat turned monk that he might the

better catch the monastery mice! Foul Templar escaped from Sodom and

Gomorrah! Who are _you_ to take up the glove for Seville nuns?

_DON MANUEL, paying no heed to TROTACONVENTOS, holds DENNYS

with one hand, and with the other draws his dagger and places

its point on his throat._

_Don Manuel de Lara_: Now, blackbird of St. Bénoit, you’ll tell me the

name of the nun you would seduce. D’ye hear? The name of the nun you

would seduce!

_Dennys_ (_gasping_): Sister Assumcion.