_Trotaconventos_: Ah!

_DON MANUEL lets go of DENNYS, who, pale and gasping, is

supported to the couch by TROTACONVENTOS, she mingling the

while words of condolence with DENNYS and imprecations against

the DON._

_Don Manuel de Lara_ (_to himself_): Strange! Passing strange! That

Moorish knight who gave me the head wound at Gibraltar ... then years

later both serenading ’neath the same balcony, in Granada ... and then

again, last year, of a sudden coming on his carved, olive face staring

at the moon from a ditch in Albarrota. And I convinced, till then, that

our lives were being twisted in one rope to some end.... Chance meetings,

chance partings, chance meetings again. And this _trovar_, coming

to-night, on business ... why am I so beset by dreams?

_Dennys_: Thanks, mother, the fiery don shook all the humours to my head

(_gets up_). Well, knight, more kicks than ha’pence—that’s the lot of

a _trovar_ in Spain. I know well, necessity makes one embrace poverty

and obedience, like the Franciscans, but I never learnt till now that a

_trovar_ must take the third vow of chastity.

_Trotaconventos_: Pooh! A rare champion of chastity and the vows of nuns

you see before you! Why, my sweet lad, this same Don Manuel de Lara

has been importuning me with prayers and tears and strange fantastical

ravings, that I should devise a meeting between him ... and whom, think

you? Why, this same Sister Assumcion.

_Dennys_: Sister Assumcion?

_Trotaconventos_: Ay, Sister Assumcion. But, as I tell him, he is one of

these fools that seek a bread not made of wheat. He’ll not to bed unless

I rifle hell for him and bring him Queen Helena. He comes to me to-night

with a “comely, yes, but comeliness, what of comeliness?” and “a tempting

enough for Pedro and Juan and the rest of the workaday world, but as to

me!” And she the prettiest nun that ever took the veil, and certain to

bear off the prize for Seville in the contest of beauty with the nuns of

Toledo ... but not good enough for him, oh no!

_Don Manuel de Lara_: Of my thirty years, I have spent sixteen in

fighting the Moors, and if I choose to squander some of the spiritual

treasures I have thus acquired by my sword in ... (_he brings the words

out with difficulty_) dallying with nuns, who knows, maybe _I_ can afford

it. But think you I’ll allow a sinewless French _jongleur_ to rifle the

spiritual treasury of Spain? For Spain is the poorer by every nun that

falls. (_Impatiently_) Pooh! If two whistling false blackbirds choose to

mate, what care I or Spain? Dame, settle this fellow’s business with him,

then ... I would claim a hearing for my own.

_Sits down on the bench and once more buries his face in

his hands. DENNYS taps his forehead meaningly and winks at

TROTACONVENTOS._

_Dennys_: Well, mother, will you be my advocate? Tell her I am master of

arts in the university of Love, and have learnt most cunning and pleasant

gymnastics in Italy, unknown to Pyramus and Troilus ... nay, not that,

for maidens want the moon, to wit, a Joseph with all the cunning in

love’s arts of Naso. Tell her rather, that having been born when Venus

was in the house of Saturn, and the scorpion ... you know the kind

of jargon ... I came into the world already endowed with knowledge of

love’s secrets ... nay ... tell her (_his voice catches fire from his

words_) the years, like village lads when the Feast of St. John draws

near, have built up in my soul a heap of lusty green branches, and old

dry sticks, and frails of dried rose-petals, and many a garland of

rosemary and maiden-hair and ivy and rue, and there it has lain until

one glance from those eyes of hers has been the spark to turn it into a

crackling, flaming, fragrant-smoked bonfire, a beacon to a thousand farms

and hamlets. Tell her I can touch the lute, the vihuela, the guitar,

the psalter, Don Tristram’s harp ... ay, and most delicately touch her

breasts. And if she wishes a little respite from _our_ love, tell her I

can wring tears from her eyes with the Matter of Britain or the Matter

of Rome—sad tales (for sadness turns sweet when it is dead) of Dido and

Iseult and Guinevere, or make her laugh and laugh again with tales from

the clerk Boccaccio. Tell her....

_Trotaconventos_: Enough, French rogue! You have little need, it seems,

of an ambassador. Well, I have seen worse-favoured lads and (_with a

scowl in the direction of DON MANUEL_) less honey-tongued. (_She rummages

in a cupboard and brings out a key._) What will you give me for this,

Don Nightingale? I’ll tell you a secret; I have a duplicate key to the

postern of near every convent in Seville, but they are not for _all_ my

clients, oh no! This opens the postern of San Miguel ... well, well, take

it then. And be there to-morrow night at nine o’clock, and I can promise

you your nun will not fail you.

_Dennys_: Oh, dearer than a mother! oh, most bountiful dame! A key!

A key! (_holds up the key_), I have ever loved a key and held it the

prettiest toy in Christendom. I vow ’twas a key and not an apple that

Eve gave to Adam in Paradise, a key and not an apple the goddesses

strove for on Mount Ida, a key into which the Roman smith, Vulcan,

put all his amorous cunning when he was minded to fashion a gift well

pleasing to his mistress, Venus. May you dream to-night that you are

young again, mother, and hold the keys of heaven. And you, sir knight,

what dreams shall I wish you? (_Eyes DON MANUEL quizzically._) Adieu.

_Exit._

_Trotaconventos_: Ay! May his key bring him joy! A very sweet rogue!

Well, Don Manuel, has your brain cooled enough to talk with me?

_DON MANUEL, who has remained passive and motionless during the

above scene, suddenly springs to his feet, his eyes blazing,

his cheeks flushed._

_Don Manuel de Lara_ (_hoarsely_): I, too, would have a key ... for the

convent of San Miguel.

_Trotaconventos_: And would you in truth? (_suspiciously_). Has the

convent some fairer nun than Sister Assumcion?

_Don Manuel de Lara_: How can I say? I have never seen any of the nuns.

All I ask you, dame, is for a key.

_Trotaconventos_: And what if I refuse you a key, Sir Arrogance?

_Don Manuel de Lara_: I will pay for it all you ask ... even to my

immortal soul.

_Trotaconventos_: And what do I want with your immortal soul? I’d as lief

have a wild cat in the house, any market day.

_Don Manuel de Lara_ (_clenching his fists and glaring at her fiercely_):

A key, a key, old hag! Give me a key.

_TROTACONVENTOS picks up his scarlet cloak which he has let

drop and waves in his face._

_Trotaconventos_: Come, come, brave bull! And has Love, the _bandillero_,

maddened you with his darts? Old Trotaconventos must turn bull-fighter!

Ah! I know the human heart! Dog in the manger, like all men! Too nice

yourself for Sister Assumcion, but too greedy to let another enjoy her!

_Don Manuel de Lara_: A key!

_Trotaconventos_: No, no, Sir knight. You are not St. Ferdinand and I am

not the Moorish king that I should yield up the keys of Seville to you

without a parley. Why do you want the key?

_Don Manuel de Lara_ (_suddenly growing quiet and eyeing her

ironically_): What if I have been on pilgrimage to Jerusalem and found

the sun too hot? I have strange fancies. They say the founder of our

house wed with a heathen witch who danced on the hills. (_Persuasively_)

Hearken, I know you love rich fabrics; I have silk coverlets from Malaga

that are ballads for the eye instead of for the ear, silk-threaded

heathen ballads of Mahound and the doves and Almanzor and his Christian

concubine. I have curtains from Almeric—Doña Maria has none to rival them

in the Alcazar—and so fresh-coloured are the flowers that are embroidered

on them, that when I was a child I thought that I could smell them,

and my mother, to coax me to eat when a dry, hot wind was parching the

_Vega_, would tell me the bees had culled the honey spread on my bread

from the flowers embroidered on these curtains. I have necklets of gold,

beaten thin like autumn beech-leaves, taken by my grandsire from the

harems of Cordova when he stormed the city with St. Ferdinand; ere they

were necklets they were ciboriums of the Goths, rifled by impious Tarik.

Precious stones? I have rubies like beakers with the red wine trembling

to their very lip ... one almost fears to lift them except with a steady

hand for fear they spill and stain one’s garments red, and like to wine,

the gifts they bring are health and a merry heart. I have Scythian

sapphires that once lay in the bed of the river of Paradise, while to

win them Arimaspians were fighting Gryphons; they are the gage of the

life to come, they are blue and cold like English ladies’ eyes who go on

pilgrimage. And I have emeralds to catch from them a blue shadow like

that of a kingfisher on green waters. He who has store of precious stones

need fear neither plague nor fever, nor fiends, nor the terrors by night,

and with that store I will endow you if you but give me the key. The key,

good mother, the key!

_Trotaconventos_: Very pretty ... but ... well ... I know a certain king,

a mighty ugly one, who laughs at the virtues of precious stones.... Aye

... but come, Don Manuel, we are but playing with each other. With your

own eyes you saw me give the key of the Convent of San Miguel to the

French _trovar_. Think you I have two?

_Don Manuel de Lara_ (_as if stunned_): Not two? To the French _trovar_?

_Trotaconventos_: Why, yes, Sir knight. Your wits are wool-gathering.

_Don Manuel de Lara_ (_in great excitement_): My cloak? Where is my

cloak? Away! the key!

_Exit._

SCENE II

_The orchard of San Miguel the following evening at nine

o’clock. Near the postern stands DON MANUEL DE LARA,

motionless, his arms folded, his cloak drawn round the lower

part of his face. Towards him hurries SISTER ASSUMCION._

_Sister Assumcion_: Good evening, friar _trovar_ ... and can you not come

forward to meet me? I can tell you, sir, it needed all Trotaconventos’s

eloquence to send me to the tryst. Never before has her pleading been so

honeyed.... Why....

_Don Manuel de Lara_: I am not the _trovar_, lady.

_Sister Assumcion_ (_starting back_): Holy saints defend me! Who, then,

are you?... And yet your voice....

_Don Manuel de Lara_: But I bear a message to you from the _trovar_.

_Sister Assumcion_ (_sharply_): Well?

_Don Manuel de Lara_: His words were these: ‘Tell her the dead grudge us

our joys.’

_Sister Assumcion_: What meant he?

_Don Manuel de Lara_: I am a messenger, not a reader of riddles.

_Sister Assumcion_ (_crossing herself_): Strange words! Where was it that

you met him?

_Don Manuel de Lara_: In the streets of Seville ... at night.

_Sister Assumcion_: And what was he doing?

_Don Manuel de Lara_: He was standing by a niche in which was an image of

Our Lady with a lamp burning before it, and by its light he was examining

a key. And he was laughing.

_Sister Assumcion_: Well?

_Don Manuel de Lara_: That is all.

_Sister Assumcion_: All? (_Shrilly_): Who are you? (_Plucks at his cloak

which he allows to fall._)

_Don Manuel de Lara_: Well, and are you any the wiser?

_Sister Assumcion_: No, your face is unknown to me.

_Don Manuel de Lara_: And yours to me.

_Sister Assumcion_: And yet, your voice ... by Our Lady, you are an

ominous, louring man. And this strange tale of the _trovar_ ... why am I

to credit it?

_Don Manuel de Lara_: Here is the key.

_Sister Assumcion_: And where is he?

_Don Manuel de Lara_: That I cannot say.

_Sister Assumcion_: Did he look sick?

_Don Manuel de Lara_: No, in the very bloom of health.

_Sister Assumcion_: And he was standing under a shrine laughing, and you

approached, and he said, “Tell her the dead grudge us our joys”.... Pooh!

It rings like a foolish ballad.

_Don Manuel de Lara_: It is true nevertheless.

_Sister Assumcion_: And how came you by the key?

_Don Manuel de Lara_ (_nonchalantly_): The key? (_holding it out in front

of him and smiling teasingly_). It is delicately wrought.

_Sister Assumcion_ (_stamping_): A madman!

_Don Manuel de Lara_: So many have said. But now, in that I have borne a

message to you, will you return the grace and bear one for me? I have a

kinswoman in this sisterhood and I would fain speak with her.

_Sister Assumcion_ (_insolently_): Have you in truth? We have no demon’s

kinswomen here ... well, and what is her name?

_Don Manuel de Lara_: Sister Pilar.

_Sister Assumcion_: Aye, _she_ might be ... sprung from the same

still-born, white-blooded grandame.

_Don Manuel de Lara_: Ah! (_with suppressed eagerness_). You know Sister

Pilar well?

_Sister Assumcion_ (_with a short laugh_): Aye, that I do.

_Don Manuel de Lara_: And ... is ... is she well?

_Sister Assumcion_: She is never ailing.

_Don Manuel de Lara_ (_absently_): Never ailing. You ... you know her

well?

_Sister Assumcion_: Without doubt, a madman! I have told you that I know

her but too well.

_Don Manuel de Lara_: On what does her talk turn?

_Sister Assumcion_: For the most part on our shortcomings. But her words

are few.

_Don Manuel de Lara_ (_pulling himself together_): Well, you would put

me much in your debt if you would carry her this letter. It bears my

credentials as her kinsman. I would speak with her at once, as I bear

weighty news for her from her home.

_Sister Assumcion_: And why could you not come knocking at the porter’s

lodge, as others do, and at some hour, too, before Compline, when ends

the day of a religious?

_Don Manuel de Lara_: As to the porter’s lodge, I have my own key. And

the news, I tell you, will not keep till morning. Handle that letter

gingerly; it bears the king’s seal.

_Sister Assumcion_ (_awed_): Don Pedro’s?

_Don Manuel de Lara_: Aye.

_Sister Assumcion_: Well ... as you will. I’ll take your message.

Good-night ... Sir demon; are you not of Hell’s chivalry?

_Don Manuel de Lara_: No.

_SISTER ASSUMCION shrugs her shoulders, looks at him

quizzically, and exit. A few minutes elapse, during which DON

MANUEL stands motionless; then SISTER PILAR enters; she gives a

slight bow and waits._

_Don Manuel de Lara_: You are Sister Pilar?

_Sister Pilar_: Yes.

_Don Manuel de Lara_: In the world the Lady Maria Guzman y Perez?

_Sister Pilar_: Yes.

_Don Manuel de Lara_: I am Don Pablo de Guzman, your father’s cousin’s

son.

_Sister Pilar_ (_with interest_): Ah! I have heard my father speak of

yours.

_Don Manuel de Lara_: You have not lately, I think, visited your home?

_Sister Pilar_: Not since I was professed.... _I_ obey the bull of Pope

Boniface, that nuns should keep their cloister.

_Don Manuel de Lara_: Your sister, Violante, has lately been wed.

_Sister Pilar_ (_eagerly_): Little Violante? She was but a child when I

took the black veil. Whom has she wedded?

_Don Manuel de Lara_: Er ... er ... a comrade in arms of mine. A knight

of Old Castille ... one Don Manuel de Lara.

_Sister Pilar_: And what manner of man is he? I should wish little

Violante to be happy.

_Don Manuel de Lara_: He passes for a brave soldier. He has brought her

the skulls of many Moors. She has filled them with earth and planted them

with bulbs. Daffodils grow out of their eyes and nose.

_Sister Pilar_: A strange device!

_Don Manuel de Lara_: ’Twas Don Manuel showed her it; such are the

whimsies of Old Castille. In that country we like to play with death.

_Sister Pilar_: Yet ... yet is it not a toy.

_Don Manuel de Lara_: We rarely play with love.

_Sister Pilar_: No.

_Don Manuel de Lara_: No.

_Sister Pilar_: I would fain learn more of this knight. He loves my

sister?

_Don Manuel de Lara_: Ah! yes. His soul snatched the torch of love from

his body, then gave it back again, then again snatched it. She is all

twined round with his dreams; she smiles at him with his mother’s eyes;

she is Belerma the Fair and Doña Alda of his childhood’s ballads. She

is a fair ship charged with spices, she is all the flowers that have

blossomed since the Third Day of the Creation, she is the bread not made

with wheat, she ... she ... she is a key, like this one (_holding up the

key_), but wrought in silver and ivory.

_Sister Pilar_: A key? Strange! (_smiling a little_). And what is he to

her?

_Don Manuel de Lara_: He to her? I know not ... perhaps also a key.

(_Pause._)

_Sister Pilar_: So you know my home? You have heard our slaves crooning

Moorish melodies from their quarters on moonlight nights, perchance you

have handled my father’s chessmen and the Portuguese pennon he won from a

French count at Tables ... oh! he was so proud of that pennon! How is the

Cid?

_Don Manuel de Lara_: The Cid? His bones still moulder in Cardeña.

_Sister Pilar_: No, no, my father’s greyhound ... the one that has one

eye blue and the other brown.

_Don Manuel de Lara_: Ah! He still sleeps by day and bays at the moon o’

nights.

_Sister Pilar_: Oh! And how tall has my oak grown now?

_Don Manuel de Lara_: Your oak?

_Sister Pilar_: Ah, surely they cannot have forgot to show it you! It

was the height of a daffodil when I took the veil. When we were children,

you know, we were told an _exemplum_ of a wise Moor who planted trees

that under their shade his children’s children might call him blessed, so

we—Sancho and Rodrigo and little Violante and me—we took acorns from the

pigs’ trough and planted them beyond the orchard, near my mother’s bed of

gillyflowers, and mine was the only one that sent forth shoots. Oh! And

the bush of Granada roses ... they must have shown you _them_?

_Don Manuel de Lara_: To be sure! They are still fragrant.

_Sister Pilar_: You know, they were planted from seeds my grandsire got

in the Alhambra when he was jousting in Granada. My father was wont to

call them his harem of Moorish beauties, and there was a nightingale that

would serenade them every evening from the Judas tree that shadows them.

It was always to them he sang, he cared not a jot for the other roses in

the garden.

_Don Manuel de Lara_: The rose-tree died of blight and the nightingale of

a broken heart the year you took the veil.

_Sister Pilar_: You are jesting!

_He smiles, and she gives a little smile back at him._

_Don Manuel de Lara_: And so it is of roses and nightingales that you

ask tidings, and not of mother and father or brothers! Well, it is

always thus with exiles. When I have lain fevered with my wounds very

far from Old Castille, it has been for the river that flows at the foot

of our orchard I have yearned, or for the green _Vega_ dotted with brown

villages and stretching away towards the _Sierra_.

_Sister Pilar_: I am not an exile.

_Don Manuel de Lara_: An exile is one who is far from home.

_Sister Pilar_: This is my home.

_Don Manuel de Lara_: And do you never yearn for your other one?

_Sister Pilar_: My _other_ one? Ah, yes!

_Don Manuel de Lara_: By that you mean Paradise?

_Sister Pilar_: Yes.

_Don Manuel de Lara_: And so you long for Paradise?

_Sister Pilar_: With a great longing.

_Don Manuel de Lara_: I sometimes _dream_ of Paradise.

_Sister Pilar_: And how does it show in your dreams?

_Don Manuel de Lara_ (_smiling a little_): I fear it is mightily like

what the _trovares_—_not_ the monks—tell us of hell.

_Sister Pilar_ (_severely_): Then it must be a dream sent you by a fiend

of the Moorish Paradise, which is indeed hell.

_Don Manuel de Lara_: That may be. And how does it show in _your_ dreams?

_Sister Pilar_: A great, cool, columned, empty hall, and I feel at once

small and vast and shod with the wind. And all the while I am aware that

the coolness and vastness and spaciousness of the hall and my body’s

lightness is because there is no sin.

_Don Manuel de Lara_: But what can you know of sin in a nunnery?

_SISTER PILAR looks at him suspiciously, but his expression

remains impenetrable._

_Don Manuel de Lara_: Well?

_Sister Pilar_: You must know ... ’tis the scandal of Christendom ...

the empty vows of the religious. Yet when all’s said, ’tis better here

than out in the world; we _do_ live under rule, and mark the day by

singing the Hours (_gazing in front of her as if at some vision_). Just

over there, perhaps across that hill, or round that bend of the road,

a cool, rain-washed world, trees, oxen, men, women, children, thin and

transparent, as if made of crystal.... I always held I would suddenly

come upon it. (_Passionately_) Oh, I am so weary of the glare and dust of

sin! Everything is heavy and savourless and confined.

_Don Manuel de Lara_: Always?

_Sister Pilar_: Yes ... except when I eat Christ in the Eucharist.

_Don Manuel de Lara_: And then?

_Sister Pilar_: Then there is vastness and peace.

_Don Manuel de Lara_: That must be a nun’s communion. When I eat Our

Lord I am filled with a great pity for His sufferings on Calvary which

the Mass commemorates. There have been times when having eaten Him on

the field of battle, my comrades and I, the tears have rained down our

cheeks, and from our pity has sprung an exceeding great rage against the

infidel dogs who deny His divinity, and in that day’s battle it goes

ill with them. And when I eat Him in times of peace, I am filled with a

longing to fall upon the Morería, a sword in one hand, a burning brand in

the other.

(_Pause._)

_Sister Pilar_: It is already very late ... for nuns. What is the weighty

news you bring me?

_Don Manuel de Lara_: Why, the marriage of your sister Violante!

_Sister Pilar_ (_coldly_): And was it for that I was dragged from the

dorter?

_Don Manuel de Lara_: I had sworn to acquaint you with the news ... and

to-morrow I leave Seville.

_Sister Pilar_ (_relenting_): And you are well acquainted with Don Manuel

de Lara?

_Don Manuel de Lara_ (_gives a start_): Don Manuel de Lara? Ah, yes ...

we are of the same country and the same age. We were suckled by one

foster-mother, we yawned over one Latin primer, and gloated over the same

tales of chivalry. We learned to ride the same horse, to fly the same

hawk; we were dubbed knight by the same stroke of the sword—we love the

same lady.

_Sister Pilar_ (_amazed_): _You_ love my sister Violante?

_Don Manuel de Lara_: Yes, I love your sister Violante ... and your

mother that carried you in her womb, and your father that begat you.

(_Violently_) By the rood, I am sick of mummery! _I_ am Don Manuel de

Lara.

_Sister Pilar_: You?

_Don Manuel de Lara_: Yes, I——

_Sister Pilar_: Then you are not the son of my father’s cousin?

_Don Manuel de Lara_: No.

_Sister Pilar_: I ... I am all dumbfounded ... I ...

_Don Manuel de Lara_: I will make it clear. On Tuesday night I heard your

talk with Sister Assumcion.

_Sister Pilar_ (_in horror_): Oh!...

_Don Manuel de Lara_: I was the man behind the wall whom you justly named

the worst kind of would-be adulterer, and....

_Sister Pilar_: I have no further words for Sister Assumcion’s lover.

_Don Manuel de Lara_: _I_ am not Sister Assumcion’s lover. The moon has

already set and risen, the sun risen and set on his dead body.

_Sister Pilar_ (_haughtily_): I am not an old peasant woman that you

should seek to please me with riddles.

_Don Manuel de Lara_: I will read you the riddle. Some weeks ago I had

business—sent from the Alcazar on a matter pertaining to some herbs—with

that old hag Trotaconventos. And through what motive I cannot say, she

waxed exceeding eloquent on the charms of Sister Assumcion. We are taught

in the Catechism that the eyes, the nose, the mouth, the ears, are gates

by which either fiends or angels may enter.... Well, her words entered

my ears and set fire to a great, dry heap of old dreams, old memories,

old hopes ... (strange! these are the _trovar’s_ words!) piled high on

my heart. I became a flame.... You are of the South, you have never seen

a fire consuming a sun-parched _vega_ in the North. Well, a fire must

work its will, and, devouring all that blocks its path—flowers, towers,

men—drive forward to its secret bourne. Who knows the bourne of fire? I

obtained speech with Sister Assumcion; it takes many waters to quench

a great fire, but the wind can alter its course. I heard a voice and

strange, passionate words ... the course of the fire was altered, but

still it drives on, still it consumes.

_Sister Pilar_ (_in a small, cold voice_): Well?

_Don Manuel de Lara_: Well? And is it well? My God! Well, a _trovar_ from

France who had entered your convent disguised as a friar obtained from

Trotaconventos this key, which I likewise desired, first because it opens

this postern, secondly because ... toys are apt to take for me a vast

significance and swell out with all the potencies of my happiness in this

world, my salvation in the next, and thus it happened with this key; the

fire rushed on, I killed the _trovar_ and took the key!

_Sister Pilar_ (_horror-stricken_): You _killed_ him?

_Don Manuel de Lara_: Yes ... and would have killed a thousand such for

the key ... a low, French _jongleur_! The world is all the better for his

loss. The dog! Daring to think he could seduce the nuns of Spain!

_Sister Pilar_: Well?

_Don Manuel de Lara_: The rest is told in few words. My madness over

(for that night I was mad) the key in my hands, counsel returned to me,

and showed me that it was not only through the key I could win to your

convent ... it is dreams that open only to this key; strange dreams I

only know in fragments ... and I minded me of an _exemplum_ told by the

king Don Sancho, in his book, of a knight that craved to talk with a nun,

and to affect the same, feigned to be her kinsman. The night I was the

other side this wall and you were taunting Sister Assumcion, you named

yourself a Guzman whose mother was a Perez. I had but to go to a herald

and learn from him all the particulars pertaining to the family of Perez

y Guzman.

_Sister Pilar_: You wished to have speech with me?

_Don Manuel de Lara_: Yes.

_Sister Pilar_: Why?

_Don Manuel de Lara_: I have already said that no one knows the bourne of

fire.

_Sister Pilar_ (_scornfully_): The bourne of fire! The bourne rather of

... I’ll not soil my lips with the word. Let me reduce your “fires,”

and “lyres,” and “moons” to plain, cold words; having wearied of Sister

Assumcion, you thought you’d sample another nun—one maybe taking a

greater stretch of arm to reach; like children with figs—a bite out of

one, then flung away, then scrambling for another on a higher branch,

that in its turn it, too, may be bitten and thrown. Or, maybe, Sister

Assumcion found the _trovar_ more to her taste than you ... yes, I have

it! _I_ am to bring a little balm to Sister Assumcion’s discarded lover!

_Don Manuel de Lara_ (_eagerly_): Oh, lady, very light of ... lady, it is

not so. Maybe thus it shows, but in your heart of hearts you know right

well it is not so. I am a grievous sinner, but my soul is not light nor

is my heart shallow ... and I think already you know ’tis so. Listen; I

could have continued feigning to be your kinsman and thus I could have

come again to speak with you, and all would have gone well; but your

presence gave me a loathing of my deceit, so I stripped me of my lies

and stand naked at your mercy. As to Sister Assumcion ... the old hag’s

words, when she spoke of her, mated with my dreams and engendered _you_

in my heart, yes, _you_; and I had but to hear the other’s voice and

hearken to her words to know that I had been duped and that she was not

you. I swear by God Almighty, by the duty I owe to my liege-lord, by my

order of chivalry, that I speak the truth.

_Sister Pilar_: Well, suppose it true, what then?

_Don Manuel de Lara_: What then? I have burned my boats and I shall go

... where? And you will to your dorter and be summoned by the cock to

matins, and it will all be as a dream (_in a voice of agony_). No! No!

By all the height and depth of God’s mercy it cannot be thus! The stars

have never said that of all men I should be the most miserable. Can you

see no pattern traced behind all this? Sin? Aye, sin.... But I verily

believe that God loves sinners. But why do I speak of sin? You say sin

is everywhere; tell me, do you see sin’s shadow lying between us two

to-night? Speak! You do not answer. Who knows? It may be that for the

first time we have stumbled on the track that leads to Paradise. Angels

are abroad ... fiends, too, it may be ... but I am not a light man. _Ex

utero ante luciferum amavi te_ ... ’tis not thus the words run, but they

came.

_Sister Pilar_: You speak wildly. What do you want of me?

_Don Manuel de Lara_: What do I want?... _Magna opera Domini_ ... why

does the psalter run in my head?... Great are the works of the Lord ...

the sun is a great work, but so is shade from the sun; and the moon is

a great work, giving coolness and dreams, and air to breathe is a great

work, and so is water to lave our wounds and slake our throats ... I

believe all the works of the Lord are found in you.... I could ... oh,

God!... Where? Lady, remember I have the key, and every evening at

sundown I shall be here ... waiting. It is a vow.

_SISTER PILAR slowly moves away._

_Don Manuel de Lara_: Lady Maria! Lady Maria!

_Sister Pilar_ (_stopping_): She is dead. Do you speak to Sister Pilar?

_Don Manuel de Lara_: Yes, that is she, Sister Pilar. Listen: receive

absolution; communicate; be very instant in prayer; make deep obeisance

to the images of Our Lady. Say many Paters and Aves, and through the

watches of the night, pray for the dead.

_Sister Pilar_ (_in a frightened voice_): For the dead?

_Don Manuel de Lara_: Aye, the dead ... that defend virginity.

_Sister Pilar_ (_very coldly_): All this has ever been my custom, as a

nun, without your admonition.

_Don Manuel de Lara_: Good-night.

(_Pause._)

_Sister Pilar_ (_almost inaudibly_): Good-night.

ACT III

SCENE I

_A week later. The Chapel of the Convent of San Miguel. SISTER

ASSUMCION kneels in the Confessional, where JAIME RODRIGUEZ is

receiving penitents._

_Sister Assumcion_: I ask your blessing, father. I confess to Almighty

God, and to you, father....

_Jaime Rodriguez_: Well, daughter—Ten Commandments, Seven Deadly Sins.

What of the Second Commandment, which we break whensoever we follow after

vanities?

_Sister Assumcion_: Yes, father. I have not foregone blackening my eyes

with kohl ... and I have procured me a crimson scarf the dye of which

comes off on the lips ... and ... the pittance I got at Easter I have

expended upon perfumes.

_Jaime Rodriguez_: Ever the same tale, daughter! As I have told you many

a time before, civet and musk make the angels hold their noses, as though

they were passing an open grave, and a painted woman makes them turn

aside their eyes; but ’tis God Himself that turns away His eyes when the

painted woman is a nun. The Second Commandment is ever a stumbling-block

to you, daughter, and so is the Sixth, for in God’s sight he who commits

the deadly sin of Rage breaks that commandment; admit, daughter!

_Sister Assumcion_: Yes, father; during the singing of None, I did loudly

rate Sister Ines and boxed her ears.

_Jaime Rodriguez_: Shame on you, daughter! Why did you thus?

_Sister Assumcion_: Because she had spewed out on my seat the sage she

had been chewing to clean her teeth after dinner, and, unwittingly, I sat

on it.

_Jaime Rodriguez_: And do you not know that a stained habit is less

ungracious in the eyes of God than a soul stained with rage against a

sister and with irreverence of His holy service?

_Sister Assumcion_: Yes, father.

_Jaime Rodriguez_: Well, for your concupiscence, rage, and

unmannerliness: seven penitential psalms with the Litany on Fridays,

and a fare of bread and water on the Fridays of this month. There still

remains the Tenth Commandment and the deadly sin of Envy; I mind me in

the past you have been guilty of Envy ... towards more virtuous and

richer sisters.

_Silence._

_Jaime Rodriguez_ (_sternly_): Daughter, admit!

_Sister Assumcion_: Father, I....

_Jaime Rodriguez_: Daughter, admit!

_Sister Assumcion_: It may be ... a little ... Sister Pilar.

_Jaime Rodriguez_: Aha! Envious of Sister Pilar! And wherein did you envy

her?

_Silence._

_Jaime Rodriguez_: Daughter, admit!

_Sister Assumcion_: I have envied her, father, but ... the matter touches

her more than me.

_Jaime Rodriguez_: You have envied her. Envy is a deadly sin; if I’m to

give you Absolution I must know more of the matter.

_Sister Assumcion_: I have envied her in that ... well, in that she was

a Guzman ... and ... and has a room to herself, and a handsome dowry....

_Jaime Rodriguez_: Doubtless you envy her for these things; but ...

I seem to detect a particular behind these generals. Touching what

particular matter during these past days have you envied Sister Pilar?

_Silence._

_Jaime Rodriguez_: Daughter, admit!

_Sister Assumcion_: Oh, father ... ’tis she that is involved ... I....

_Jaime Rodriguez_: Daughter, admit!

_Sister Assumcion_: There was a man ... it was Trotaconventos ... all he

asked was a few words with me, no more ... nothing ... nothing unseemly

passed between us ... and then he flouted me ... and then he came bearing

a letter and saying he was a kinsman of Sister Pilar.

_Jaime Rodriguez_: Come, daughter, your confession is like a peasant’s

tale—it begins in the middle and has no end. Why should you envy Sister

Pilar this kinship?

_Silence._

_Jaime Rodriguez_: Daughter, it is a dire and awful thing to keep back

aught in the Confessional; admit.

_Sister Assumcion_: He was not her kinsman, as it happens, and ... even

had he been....

_Jaime Rodriguez_ (_eagerly_): Well?

_Sister Assumcion_: Father ... pray....

_Jaime Rodriguez_: I begin to understand; your foolish, vain, envious

heart was sore that this knight treated you coldly, and you have dared to

dream that that most virtuous and holy lady, Sister Pilar....

_Sister Assumcion_ (_hotly_): Dreaming? Had you been in the orchard last

evening, and seen what I saw, you would not speak of dreaming!

_Jaime Rodriguez_ (_breathlessly_): What did you see?

_Silence._

_Jaime Rodriguez_: You have gone too far, daughter, to turn back now. I

must hear all.

_Sister Assumcion_: Well, last evening, just before Compline, I went

down to the orchard to breathe the cool air; and there I came upon

Sister Pilar and this knight; but they were so deep in talk they did not

perceive me, so I hid behind a tree and listened.

_Jaime Rodriguez_: Well?

_Sister Assumcion_: Well, he is, I think, clean mad, and she, too, is

of a most fantastical conceit; and sometimes their words seemed empty

of all sense and meaning, but sometimes it was as clear as day—little

loving harping upon foolishness and little tricks of speech or manner,

as it might be a country lad and lass wooing at a saints’ shrine: “there

again!” “what?” “You burred your R like a child whose mouth is full of

chestnuts.” “Nay, I did not!” “Why, yes, I say you did!” And then a great

silence fell on them, she with her eyes downcast, he devouring her with

his, and the air seemed too heavy for them even to draw their breath;

then up she started, and trembled from head to foot, and fled to the

house.

_Jaime Rodriguez_: But ... but ... yes; thank you, daughter ... I mean,

six paters daily for a fortnight. (_Gabbles mechanically_): Dominus

noster Jesus Christus te absolvat: et ego auctoritate ipsius te absolvo

ab omni vinculo excommunicationis et interdicti in quantum possum, et tu

indiges. Deinde ego te absolvo a peccatis tuis, in nomine Patris, et

Filii, et Spiritus Sancti. Amen.

_SISTER ASSUMCION crosses herself, rises and leaves the

Confessional. After a few seconds, SISTER PILAR enters it._

_Sister Pilar_: I ask your blessing, father. I confess to Almighty God,

and to you, father....

_Jaime Rodriguez_: Well?

_Sister Pilar_: I unwittingly omitted the _dipsalma_ between two verses

in choir, father.

_Jaime Rodriguez_: Yes, yes ... what else?

_Sister Pilar_: Last Sunday I chewed the Host with my back teeth instead

of with my front.

_Jaime Rodriguez_: Yes, yes, yes; small sins of omission and negligence

... what else?

_Sister Pilar_: That is all, father.

_Jaime Rodriguez_: All you have to confess?

_Sister Pilar_: All, father.

_Jaime Rodriguez_: But ... but ... this is ... daughter, you _dare_ to

come to me with a Saint’s confession? Bethink you of your week’s ride,

ten stone walls to be cleared clean, seven pits from which to keep your

horse’s hoofs ... not one of the Ten Commandments broken, daughter? Not

one of the Seven Deadly Sins upon your conscience?

_Sister Pilar_: No, father.

_Jaime Rodriguez_: But ... beware ... most solemnly do I conjure you to

beware of withholding aught in the Confessional.

_Silence._

_Jaime Rodriguez_: Well, I shall question you. On what have you meditated

by day?

_Sister Pilar_: On many things; all lovely.

_Jaime Rodriguez_: Of what have you dreamed o’ nights?

_Sister Pilar_: Of godly matters, cool cathedrals, and Jacob’s ladder.

_Jaime Rodriguez_: Of man?

_Silence._

_Jaime Rodriguez_ (_threateningly_): Daughter! Admit!

_Sister Pilar_: Sometimes ... I ... have dreamed of man.

_Jaime Rodriguez_: Of _a_ man?

_Sister Pilar_: Of a monk dwelling in the same community who has

sometimes knelt at the altar by my side to receive the Lord.

_Jaime Rodriguez_: But this is not a mixed community.

_Sister Pilar_: No, father.

_Jaime Rodriguez_: What of this monk, then?

_Sister Pilar_: You asked me, father, of my dreams.

_Jaime Rodriguez_: And had this monk of dreams the features of a living

man?

_Sister Pilar_: Yes, father.

_Jaime Rodriguez_ (_hoarsely_): Whose?

_Sister Pilar_: Sometimes they were the features of my father ... one

night of an old Basque gardener we had in my home when I was a child.

_Jaime Rodriguez_: Pooh! Daughter, you are holding something back....

Beware! What of your allegory of the little stone the giant could not

move?

_Sister Pilar_: I have confessed _all my sins_.

_Jaime Rodriguez_: Daughter, I refuse to give you Absolution.

_SISTER PILAR crosses herself, rises, and goes out of the

chapel. JAIME RODRIGUEZ leaves the confessional looking pale

and tormented; he is accosted by TROTACONVENTOS, who has been

sitting waiting._

_Trotaconventos_: A word with you, Don Jaime.

_Jaime Rodriguez_: Anon, anon, good dame. I have pressing business in the

town.

_Trotaconventos_: Your business can wait, but not my words. They touch

Sister Pilar. (_He starts violently and looks at her expectantly._) You

see, you will not to your business till I am done with you ... just one

little word to bind you to my will! And in that I ever know the little

word that will make men hurrying to church or market stand still as you

are doing now, or else if they be standing still to run like zebras: they

call me a witch.

_Jaime Rodriguez_: Yes, yes, but you said you had ... a word ... touching

... for my ear.

_Trotaconventos_: And so I have, Don Jaime; I am making my soul. A hard

job, your eyes say. Well, with my brushes and ointments I can make the

complexion of a brown witch as fair as a lily, I can make an old face

slough its wrinkles like a snake its skin in spring; and who knows what

true penitence will not do to my soul?

_Jaime Rodriguez_: Good dame, I beseech you, to business!

_Trotaconventos_: And is not the saving of my soul business, if you

please?

_Jaime Rodriguez_: Yes, your confessor’s ... in truth, dame, I am much

pressed for time.

_Trotaconventos_: And yet, though time, or the lack of him, expresses all

the marrow from your bones, because of that little name you cannot move

till I have said my say. Is it true that St. Mary Magdalene was once a

bawd and a maker of cosmetics?

_Jaime Rodriguez_ (_with weary resignation_): Aye.

_Trotaconventos_: And did you ever hear that she sold her daughter to a

Jew, and that daughter a nun?

_Jaime Rodriguez_ (_in horror_): Never!

_Trotaconventos_: But if she had, would her tears of penitence have

washed it out?

_Jaime Rodriguez_: Yes, if she had confessed it and done penance.

_Trotaconventos_: And what is more, become herself a scourge of sinners

and saved the souls of two innocent babes for the Church?

_Jaime Rodriguez_: Yes, thus would she have acquired merit.

_Trotaconventos_: Well, I have brought as many maids to bed that

multiplied by ten you will have baptised and buried when you are three

score years and ten.... Why! it is no more to me than it was to my old

father, who owned some land Carmona way, to take a heifer to bull. In

truth, if Don Love still reigned in heaven and had not fallen with

Satan into hell, your children’s children would be praying to _Saint_

Trotaconventos that she would send them kisses and ribbons and moonless

nights; my bones would be lying under the altar of some parish church,

and two of my teeth in a fine golden reliquary would cure maids of

pimples, lads of warts. All that lies very lightly on my soul ...

but there are other things ... and ... (_looking round furtively_)

these nights I’ve sometimes wished for a dog that I might hear his

snore.... What if before she died Trotaconventos should be re-christened

Convent-Scourge? I have learned ... oh, one of my trade needs must

have as many eyes as the cow-herd of the Roman dame, I forget what the

_trovares_ call her, and as many ears as eyes ... that a certain nun of

this convent ... you grow restive? Why, then, once more I must whisper

the magic name and root you to the ground. _Sister Pilar_ is deep in an

_amour_ with a knight of the Court ... an overbearing, vain, foolish man

against whom I bear a grudge. And Trotaconventos means, before she dies,

on one nun at least in place of opening, to shut the convent gate; nay,

to bring her to her knees and penitence. Well, what think you?

_Jaime Rodriguez_: There is some dark thought brooding in your heart,

and, unlike the crow, I deem it will hatch out acts black as itself,[4]

but the whiteness of her virtue will not be soiled.

_Trotaconventos_: And is Sister Pilar too firmly settled in her niche to

topple down? Yet how she laughs at you! Why, I have heard her say that

you are neither man nor priest, but just a bundle of hay dressed up in

a soutane, whose head is a hollow pumpkin holding a burning candle, to

frighten boors and children with death and judgment on the eve of All

Souls.

_Jaime Rodriguez_ (_hotly_): She said that? When?

_Trotaconventos_: Why, I cannot mind me of the date; she has used you

so often as a strop for sharpening her tongue. But let me unfold my

plan. Maybe you know I am ever in and out of the Alcazar with draughts

and oils and unguents ... and other toys that shall be nameless ... for

Doña Maria. Poor soul! The fiends torment her, too, and she clutches

at aught that may serve as atonement. I told her the story, and she

was all agog to be the instrument for restoring the good name to the

convents of Seville. She thanked me kindly for my communication, and

sent her _camarero_ to fetch me a roll of Malaga silk, and then she went

to Don Pedro feigning ignorance of the knight’s name—for, next to his

carbuncle, Don Pedro puts his faith in the strong right arm of Don Manuel

de Lara—told him the tale, and wheedled from him a writ signed with the

royal seal, the name to be filled in when she had learned it, for he

is very jealous of the right which it seems alone among the Kings of

Christendom is his—to punish infringements of canon, as well as of civil

law. I have the writ, and towards sundown I shall come to the convent

orchard with three alguaciles[5] to tear the canting Judas from his

lady’s arms.

_Jaime Rodriguez_ (_in horror_): Her arms? Nay, not that....

_Trotaconventos_: Why, yes; her arms and lips. Come, come, Sir Priest,

think you it is with the feet and nose lovers embrace?

_JAIME RODRIGUEZ continues to gaze at her in horror._

_Trotaconventos_ (_chuckling_): Oh, well I know the clerks of your

kidney! Your talk would bring a blush to a bawd, and you’ll hold your

sides and smack your lips over French fables and the like; but when it

comes to flesh and hot blood and _doing_, you’ll draw down your upper

lip, turn up your eyes, and cry, “But it’s not true. It cannot be!” Come,

pull yourself together—’tis you must be the fowler of the nun.

_Jaime Rodriguez_ (_starting_): I?

_Trotaconventos_: You.

_Jaime Rodriguez_: But the discipline of nuns lies with the Chapter.

_Trotaconventos_: Yes, yes, but, ’tis the common talk of Seville that

the Prioress here is too busy with little hounds and apes and flutings

and silk veils to care for discipline ... you’ll not get her wetting

her slashed shoes in the orchard dew. You, the chaplain of this house,

must meet me to-night outside the orchard’s postern to catch the nun

red-handed and drag her before the Prioress.... Ah! to-night you’ll see

whether it be only in songs and tales and little lewd painted pictures

that folks know how to kiss!

_Jaime Rodriguez_ (_violently_): I’ll not be there!

_Trotaconventos_: Not there? Why, Sister Pilar spoke truly: “neither man

nor priest”—not man enough to take vengeance on his spurner, not priest

enough to chastise a sinner.

_Jaime Rodriguez_ (_in a fury of despair_): Ah! I will be there.

_He rushes from the chapel. TROTACONVENTOS looks after him, a

slow smile spreading over her face, and she nods her head with

satisfaction. Enter SISTER ASSUMCION._

_Trotaconventos_: Aha! my little pigeon, how goes the world? Has my

lotion cured that little roughness on your cheek? Come, my beauty, let

me feel (_she draws her hand down her cheek_). Why, yes, it’s as smooth

and satiny as a queen-apple (_makes a scornful exclamation_). And so that

lantern-jawed Knight prefers Sister Whey to Sister Cream! Well, he’ll get

well churned for his pains. Oh, the nasty Templar come to life ... oh,

the pompous fool, marching with solemn gait like a lord abbot frowning

over a great paunch because, forsooth, he has swallowed the moon and she

has dissolved into humours in his belly! Oh ... oh ... with “good dame,

do this,” and “good dame, do that,” as though I were his slave ... ’tis

sweet when duty and vengeance chime together. (_Looking maliciously at

Sister Assumcion._) Spurned, too, by the pretty French _trovar_! Why, it

is indeed a deserted damsel! Oh, you needn’t blush and toss your head;

when I was of your age and your complexion, I could land a fish as well

as throw a line. (_Melting._) Never mind, poor poppet, you were wise in

that you came to me with your tale of Don Joseph and my lady Susannah for

once caught napping ... and that in each other’s arms. I have devised a

pretty vengeance which I will unfold to you. Aye! you’ll see that proud

white Guzman without her black veil, last in choir for the rest of her

days, and every week going barefoot round the cloister while the Prioress

drubs her! And the sallow knight who thought my cream had turned when it

was but his own sour stomach ... he’ll have to sell his Moorish loot to

buy waxen tapers, and be beaten round all the churches of Seville ... may

I live to see the day! Never was there a sweeter medicine whereby to save

one’s soul, than vengeance on one’s foes. (_She pauses for a few seconds,

and a strange light comes into her eyes._) Don Juan Tenorio, I have made

my choice—I fight with the dead. (_shakes her fist at the audience_)

Arrogant, flaunting youth! Beauty! Hot blood! From the brink of the grave

Trotaconventos threatens you.

SCENE II

_The evening of the same day. The convent orchard. SISTER PILAR

and DON MANUEL DE LARA are lying locked in each other’s arms.

She extricates herself and sits up._

_Sister Pilar_ (_very slowly_): You ... have ... ravished ... me.

_Don Manuel de Lara_ (_triumphantly_): Yes, eyes of my heart; I have

unlocked your sweet body.

(_Pause._)

_Sister Pilar_: Strange! Has my prayer been answered? And by whom?

_Don Manuel de Lara_: What prayer, beloved?

_Sister Pilar_: That night you were the other side of the wall, I prayed

that I might behold the woof without the warp of sin, a still, quiet,

awful world, and all the winds asleep. (_Very low._) IT was like that.

(_Springing to her feet._) Christ Jesus! Blessed Virgin! Guardian angel,

where was your sword? I, a nun, a bride of Christ, I have been ravished.

I am fallen lower than the lowest woman of the town, I have forfeited my

immortal soul. (_Sobbing, she sinks down again beside DON MANUEL, and

lays her head on his shoulder._) Beloved! Why have you brought me to

this? Why, my beloved?

_Don Manuel de Lara_ (_caressing her_): Hush, little love, hush! Your

body is small and thin ... hush!

_Sister Pilar_: But how came it to fall out thus? Why?

_Don Manuel de Lara_: Because there was something stronger than the

angels, than all the hosts of the dead.

_Sister Pilar_: What?

_Don Manuel de Lara_: I cannot say ... something ... I feel it—yet,

where are these words? They have suddenly come to me: _amor morte

fortior_—against love the dead whose aid you, and I, too, invoked, cannot

prevail.

_Sister Pilar_ (_shuddering_): Yet the dead kept Sister Assumcion from

her _trovar_.

_Don Manuel de Lara_: Their souls were barques too light to be freighted

with love; for it is very heavy.

_Sister Pilar_: And so they did not sink.

_Don Manuel de Lara_: Who can tell if lightness of soul be not the

greatest sin of all? And as to us ... the proverb says the paths that

lead to God are infinite ... beloved, I feel.... Something holy is with

us to-day.

_Sister Pilar_: Fiends, fiends, wearing the weeds of angels....

(_Groans._)

_Don Manuel de Lara_: Rest, small love ... there, I’ll put my cloak for

your head. Why is your body so thin and small?

_Sister Pilar_ (_her eyes fixed in horror_): I cannot believe that it is

really so. A week since, yesterday, an hour since, I ... was ... a ... a

... virgin, and now ... can God wipe out the past?

_Don Manuel de Lara_: Nay ... nor would I have Him do so.

_Sister Pilar_: Beloved ... we have sinned ... most grievously.

_Don Manuel de Lara_: What is sin? I would seem to have forgotten. What

is sin, beloved? Be my herald and read me his arms.

_Sister Pilar_: Death ... I have said that before ... ah, yes, to the

_trovar_ ... death, death....

_Don Manuel de Lara_: With us is neither sin nor death. You yourself said

that during IT sin vanished.

_Sister Pilar_: Yes ... so it seemed ... (_almost inaudibly_) ’twas what

I feel, only ten times multiplied, when I eat Christ in the Eucharist.

_Don Manuel de Lara_: Hush, beloved, hush! You are speaking wildly.

_Sister Pilar_: Oh! what did I say? Yes, they were wild words.

(_Pause._)

_Sister Pilar_: Do you know, we are in the octave of the Feast of Corpus

Christi? I seem to have fallen from the wheel of the Calendar to which

I have been tied all my life ... saints, apostles, virgins, martyrs,

rolled round, rolled round, year after year ... like the Kings and

Popes and beggars on the Wheel of Fortune in my mother’s book of Hours.

Yes, beloved, we have fallen off the wheel and are lying stunned in its

shadow among the nettles and deadly night-shade; but above us, creaking,

creaking, the old wheel turns. It may be we are dead ... are we dead,

beloved?

_Through the trees SISTER ASSUMCION is heard shouting, “Sister

Pilar! Sister Pilar!” SISTER PILAR starts violently and once

more springs to her feet. SISTER ASSUMCION appears running

towards them._

_Sister Assumcion_ (_breathlessly_): Quick! Quick! Not a moment ...

they’ll be here! I cannot ... quick! (_She presses her hand to her side

in great agitation_).

_Don Manuel de Lara_: What is all this? Speak, lady.

_Sister Assumcion_: Trotaconventos ... Don Jaime ... the _alguaciles_.

_Don Manuel de Lara_: Take your time, lady. When you have recovered your

breath you will tell us what all this portends.

_Sister Assumcion_: Away! Away! Trotaconventos has been to Don Pedro ...

she has a writ against you ... the _alguaciles_ will take you to prison

... and Don Jaime comes to catch Sister Pilar ... fly! fly! ere ’tis too

late.

_Sister Pilar_ (_dully_): Caught up again on the wheel ... death’s wheel,

and it will crush us.

_Sister Assumcion_ (_shaking her_): Rouse yourself, sister! You yet have

time.

_Don Manuel de Lara_: We are together, beloved ... do you fear?

_Sister Pilar_: No ... I neither fear, nor hope, nor breathe.

_Sister Assumcion_: Mad, both of them! I tell you, they come with the

_alguaciles_.

_Don Manuel de Lara_: And if they came with all the hosts of Christendom

and Barbary, yet should you see what you will see. I have a key, and I

could lock the postern, but I’ll not do so. (_He picks up his sword,

girds it on, and draws it._) Why ... all the Spring flows in my veins

to-day.... I am the Spring. What man can fight the Spring?

_Sound of voices and hurrying steps outside the postern.

TROTACONVENTOS, JAIME RODRIGUEZ, and three alguaciles come

rushing in. SISTER ASSUMCION shrieks._

_Trotaconventos_: There, my brave lads, I told you! Caught in the act ...

the new Don Juan Tenorio and his veiled concubine!

_Don Manuel de Lara_: Silence, you filthy, bawdy hag! (_glares at her._)

Here stand I, Don Manuel de Lara, and here stands a very noble lady of

Spain and a bride of Christ, and here is my sword. Who will lay hands on

us? You, Don Priest, pallid and gibbering? You, vile old woman, whose

rotten bones need but a touch to crumble to dust and free your black soul

for hell? You ... (_his eyes rest on the alguaciles_). Why! By the rood

... ’tis Sancho and Domingo and Pedro! Old comrades, you and I, beneath

the rain of heaven and of Moorish arrows have buried our dead; we have

sat by the camp-fire thrumming our lutes or capping riddles (_laughs_).

How does it go? “I am both hot and cold, and fish swim in me without my

being a river,” and the answer is a frying-pan ... and in the cold dawn

of battle we have kneeled side by side and eaten God’s Body.

_The alguaciles smile sheepishly and stand shuffling their

feet._

_Trotaconventos_: At him! At him, good lads! What is his sword to your

three knives and cudgels? Remember, you carry a warrant with Don Pedro’s

seal.

_Sancho_ (_dubiously_): ’Tis true, captain, we carry a royal warrant for

your apprehension.

_Trotaconventos_: At him! At him!

_Don Manuel de Lara_: At me then! Air! Fire! Water! A million million

banners of green leaves! A mighty army of all the lovers who have ever

loved! Come, then, and fight them in me! _You_, too, were there that day

when the whole army saw the awful ærial warrior before whom the Moors

melted like snow ... what earthly arrows could pierce his star-forged

mail? I, too, have been a journey to the stars. I wait! At me!

_The alguaciles stand as if hypnotised._

_Trotaconventos_: Rouse yourselves, you fools! Oh, he’s a wonder with his

stars and his leaves. Why, on his own showing, he is but a tumbler at a

fair in a suit of motley covered with spangles, or a Jack-in-the-green at

a village May-day. Come to your senses, good fellows; we can’t stay here

all night.

_Don Manuel de Lara_: Sancho, hand me that warrant.

_Trotaconventos_: No! No! You fool!

_Without a word SANCHO hands the warrant to DON MANUEL, who

reads it carefully through._

_Don Manuel de Lara_: Sir Priest! I see you carry quill and ink-horn....

I fain would borrow them of you.

_Trotaconventos_: No! No! Do not trust him, Don Jaime.

_Don Manuel de Lara_ (_impatiently_): Come, Sir Priest.

_JAIME RODRIGUEZ obeys him in silence. DON MANUEL makes an

erasure in the warrant and writes in words in its place._

_Don Manuel de Lara_ (_handing the warrant to Sancho_): There, Sancho, I

have made a little change ... you’ll not go home with an empty bag, after

all. (_Pointing to Jaime Rodriguez._) There stands your quarry, looking

like a sleep-walker ... to gaol with him ... until his arch-priest gets

him out ... ’twill make a good fable, “which tells of a Prying Clerk and

how he cut himself on his own sharpness.”

_The alguaciles, chuckling, seize JAIME RODRIGUEZ and bind him,

he staring all the time as if in a dream._

_Trotaconventos_ (_stamping_): You fools! You fools! And _you_ (_turning

to DON MANUEL_) ... you’ll lose your frenzied head for tampering with Don

Pedro’s seal.

_Don Manuel de Lara_: Nay, I’d not lose it if I tampered with his

carbuncle ... he is menaced by shadows and I fight them for him. Nor,

on my honour as a Knight, shall one hair of the head of Sancho and

Pedro and Domingo there suffer for this. But _you_ ... you heap of dung

outside the city’s wall, you stench of dogs’ corpses, devastating plague

... _you_ shall die ... not by my sword, however (_draws his dagger and

stabs Trotaconventos_). Away with her and your other quarry, Sancho ...

good-day, old comrades ... here’s to drink my health (_throws them a

purse_).

_SANCHO and PEDRO lift up the dying TROTACONVENTOS, DOMINGO

leads off JAIME RODRIGUEZ and exeunt. SISTER PILAR stands

motionless, pale, and wide-eyed, SISTER ASSUMCION has collapsed

sobbing with terror on the ground. DON MANUEL DE LARA stands

for a few moments motionless, then quietly walks to the

postern and locks it with the key, returns, and again stands

motionless; then suddenly his eyes blaze and he throws out his

arms._

_Don Manuel de Lara_ (_loudly and triumphantly_): His truth shall compass

thee with a shield: thou shalt not be afraid for the terror by the night.

For the arrow that flieth in the day, for the plague that walketh in the

darkness: for the assault of the evil one in the noon-day. A thousand

shall fall at thy side, and ten thousand at thy right hand; but it shall

not come nigh thee. The dead, the dead ... they melted like snow before

the Spring ... my beloved!

_Pause. Beyond the orchard wall there is heard the tinkling of

a bell, and a voice calling, “Make way for el Señor! Way for el

Señor!”_

_Sister Assumcion_ (_sobbing_): They are carrying the Host to

Trotaconventos.

_All three kneel down and cross themselves. The sound of the

bell and the cry of “el Señor” grow fainter and fainter in

the distance; when it can be heard no more, they rise. SISTER

PILAR draws her hand over her eyes, then opens them, blinking a

little and gazing round as if bewildered._

_Sister Pilar_: Yes ... Corpus Christi ... and then Ascension ... and

then Pentecost ... round and round ... Hours ... el Señor wins in His

Octave.... Is He the living or the dead, Don Manuel?

_Don Manuel de Lara_: Beloved! What are you saying?

_Sister Pilar_: What am I saying? Something has had a victory ... maybe

the dead ... but the victory is not to you. (_Her eyes softening as

she looks at him._) Beloved! (_makes a little movement as if shaking

something off_). First, I must finish my confession ... the one I made

this morning was sacrilege ... something had blinded me. They say that in

the Primitive Church the penitents confessed one to other, so will I.

_She walks up to SISTER ASSUMCION, who is crouching under a

tree, her teeth chattering, and goes down on her knees before

her._

_Sister Pilar_: I confess to Almighty God, and to you, little sister,

because I have sinned against you exceedingly, in thought, word and

deed (_she strikes her breast three times_), through my fault, through

my fault, through my most grievous fault. You were wiser than I, little

sister, and knew me better than I knew myself. I deemed my soul to be

set on heavenly things, but therein was I grievously mistaken. When I

chid you for wantonness, thinking it was zeal for the honour of the

house, it was naught, as you most truly said, but envy of you, in that

you gave free rein to your tongue and your desires. And, though little

did I wot of it, I craved for the love of man as much as ever did you,

nay, more. Even that poor wretch, Don Jaime ... it was as if I came more

alive when I talked with him than when I was in frater or in dorter with

naught but women. Then that poor _trovar_ ... he gave me a longing for

the very things I did most condemn in talk with him ... the merry rout of

life, all noise and laughter and busyness and perfumed women. Then when

he gazed at you as does a prisoner set free gaze at the earth, my heart

seemed to contract, my blood to dry up, and I hated you. And then ...

and then ... there came Don Manuel, and time seemed to cease, eternity

to begin. All my far-flown dreams came crowding back to me like homing

birds; envy, rage, pride dropped suddenly dead, like winds in a great

calm at sea ... and that great calm was ... Lust.

_DON MANUEL, who has been standing motionless, makes a movement

of protest._

_Sister Pilar_: Yes ... Lust. Little sister, I verily believe that in

spite of foolishness and vanity, all the sins of this community are

venial ... excepting mine. For I am Christ’s adulteress (_DON MANUEL

starts forward with a stifled cry, but she checks him with upraised

hand_), a thing that Jezebel would have the right to spurn with her

foot ... yes, little sister, I, a bride of Christ, have been ravished.

(_Seizing her hands._) Poor little sister ... just a wild bird beating

its wings against a cage through venial longings for air and sun! I am

not worthy to loose the latchet of your shoe.

_SISTER ASSUMCION, who up to now has been crying softly, at

this point bursts into violent sobs._

_Sister Assumcion_: Oh ... Sister ... ’tis I ... I envied you first your

fine furniture and sheets and ... things ... and then the knight there

... spurning me for you ... and I told Trotaconventos ... and Don Jaime

... and it is all my doing ... and ’tis I that crave forgiveness.

_Sister Pilar_: Hush, little sister, hush! (_Strokes her hands._) Sit

quiet a little while and rest ... you have been sadly shaken.

_Rises and silently confronts DON MANUEL DE LARA._

_Don Manuel de Lara_: And what have you to say to me—my beloved?

_Sister Pilar_: Only that I fear my little sister and I are late for

Vespers.

_He falls on his knees and seizes the hem of her habit._

_Don Manuel de Lara_: Oh, very soul of my soul! White heart of hell

wherein I must burn for all eternity! I see it now ... we have been

asleep and we have wakened ... or, maybe, we have been awake and now we

have fallen asleep. Look! look at the evening star caught in the white

blossom—the tree’s cold, virginal fruition (_springs to his feet_).

Vespers ... the Evening Star ... bells and stars and Hours, they are

leagued against me ... and yet I thought ... is it the living or the

dead? I cannot fight stars ... wheels ... the Host ... Beloved, will

you sometimes dream of me? No need to answer, because I know you will.

Our dreams ... God exacts no levy on our dreams ... the angels dare not

touch them ... they are ours. First, heavy penance, then, maybe, if I win

forgiveness, the white habit of St. Bruno. When you are singing Lauds,

Prime, Terce, Sext, None, Vespers, and Compline, I, too, shall be singing

them—through the long years. God is merciful and the Church is the full

granery of His Grace ... maybe He will pardon us; but it will be for

_your_ soul that I shall pray, not mine.

_Sister Pilar_ (_almost inaudibly_): And I for yours ... beloved. (_Turns

towards SISTER ASSUMCION_): Come, little sister.

_They move slowly towards the Convent till they vanish among

the trees. DON MANUEL holds out the key in front of him for a

few seconds, gazing at it, then unlocks the postern, goes out

through it, shuts it, and one can hear him locking it at the

other side._

SCENE III

_The Convent chapel. The nuns seated in their stalls are

singing Vespers._

Praise the Lord, O Jerusalem; praise thy God, O Zion.

For He hath strengthened the bars of thy gates; he hath blessed thy

children within thee.

Who hath made peace in thy borders: and filled thee with the fat of corn.

Who sendeth forth His speech upon the earth: His word runneth very

swiftly.

_SISTER PILAR, as white as death, and SISTER ASSUMCION, still

sobbing, enter and take their places._

Who giveth snow like wool: He scattereth mist like ashes.

He sendeth His crystal like morsels: who shall stand before the face of

His cold?

He shall send out His word and shall melt them: His wind shall blow, and

the waters shall run.

Who declareth His word unto Jacob: His Justice and judgments unto Israel.

He hath not done in like manner to every nation: and His judgement He

hath not made manifest to them.

The Lord, who putteth peace on the borders of the Church, filleth us with

the fat of wheat.

Brethren: For I have received of the Lord that which also I delivered

unto you, that the Lord Jesus, the same night in which He was betrayed,

took bread, and giving thanks, broke, and said: “Take ye and eat: this is

my body, which shall be delivered for you: this do for the commemoration

of me.”

_They sing_:

Pange, lingua, gloriósi,

Córporis mystérium,

Sangúinisque pretiósi,

Quem in mundi prétium

Fructus ventris generósi

Rex effudit géntium.

_During the singing of this hymn, SISTER PILAR leaves her place

in the choir and prostrates herself before the altar._

Nobis datus, nobis natus

Ex intacta virgine,

Et in mundo conversátus,

Sparso verbi sémine,

Sui moras incolátus

Miro clausit órdine.

In suprémæ nocte coenæ

Recúmbens cum frátribus.

_The curtain, when there is one, should at this point begin

slowly to fall._

Observáta lege plene

Cibis in legalibus

Cibum turbæ duodénæ

Se dat suis manibus.

For a few seconds there was silence; and Teresa saw several ladies

exchanging amused, embarrassed glances.

Then Harry could be heard saying, “Er ... er ... er ... a piece ...

er ... AMAZINGLY well adapted to its audience ... er ... er....” All

turned round in the direction of his voice, and some smiled. Then again

there was a little silence, till a gallant lady, evidently finding the

situation unbearable, came up to Teresa and said, “Thrilling, my dear,

thrilling! But I’m afraid in places it’s rather too deep for me.”

Then others followed her example. “What _is_ an auto-sacramentál,

exactly?” “Oh, really! A knight of the time of Pedro the Cruel? I always

connected Don Juan ... or how is it one ought to pronounce it? Don Huan,

is it? I always connected him with the time of Byron, but I suppose that

was absurd.” “I liked the troubadour’s jolly red boots; are they what are

called Cossack boots? Oh, no, of course, that’s Russian.”

But it was clear they were all horribly embarrassed.

The babies and children had, for some time, been getting fretful; and now

the babies were giving their nerve-rending catcalls, the children their

heart-rending keening.

In one of her moments of insight, Jollypot had said that there is nothing

that brings home to one so forcibly the suffering involved in merely

being alive as the change that takes place in the cry of a child between

its first and its fourth year.

But the children were soon being comforted with buns; the babies with

great, veined, brown-nippled breasts, while Mrs. Moore, markedly avoiding

any member of the Lane family, moved about among her women with pursed

mouth.

Then the actors appeared, still in their costumes, and mingled with the

other guests, drinking tea and chatting. The Doña, eyebrows quizzically

arched, came up to Teresa.

“My dear child, what _were_ you thinking of? Just look at Mrs. Moore’s

face! That, of course, makes up for a lot ... but, still! And I do hope

they won’t think Spanish convents are like that nowadays.”

Thank goodness! The Doña, at least, had not smelt a rat.

Then she saw Guy coming towards her; for some reason or other, he looked

relieved.

“I wish to God Haines would make his people stylisize their acting

more—make them talk in more artificial voices in that sort of play. They

ought to speak like the Shades in Homer; that would preserve the sense of

the Past. There’s nothing that can be so modern as a voice.” He looked

at her. “It’s funny ... you know, it’s not the sort of thing one would

have expected you to write. It has a certain gush and exuberance, but

it’s disgustingly pretty ... it really is, Teresa! Of course, one does

get thrills every now and then, but I’m not sure if they’re legitimate

ones—for instance, in the last scene but one, when Don Manuel becomes

identified with the Year-Spirit.”

So _that_ was it! He had feared that, according to his own canons, it

would be much better than it was; hence his look of relief. She had a

sudden vision of what he had feared a thing written by her would be

like—something black and white, and slightly mathematical; dominoes,

perhaps, which, given that the simple rule is observed that like numbers

must be placed beside like, can follow as eccentric a course as the

players choose, now in a straight line, now zigzagging, now going off at

right angles, now again in a straight line; a sort of visible music. And,

indeed, that line of ivory deeply indentured with the strong, black dots

would be like the design, only stronger and clearer, made by an actual

page of music; like that in a portrait she had once seen by Degas of a

lady standing by a piano.

But she felt genuinely glad that her play should have achieved this, at

least, that one person should feel happier because of it; and she was

quite sincere when she said, “Well, Guy, it’s an ill wind, you know.”

He grew very red. “I haven’t the least idea what you mean,” he said

angrily.

After that, Concha came up, and was very warm in her congratulations.

Did she guess? If she did, she would rather die than show that she did.

Teresa began to blush, and it struck her how amused Concha must be

feeling, if she _had_ guessed, at the collapse of Sister Assumcion’s love

affairs, and at the final scene between Pilar and Assumcion—Pilar’s noble

self-abasement, Assumcion’s confession of her own inferiority.

And David? He kept away from her, and she noticed that he was very white,

and that his expression was no longer buoyant.

CHAPTER XII

That evening Teresa got no word alone with David.

The next morning at breakfast it was proposed that Dick, Concha and Rory,

and Arnold, should motor to the nearest links, play a round or two, and

have luncheon at the clubhouse; and David asked if he might go with them

to “caddy.”

Harry and Guy had to leave by an early train.

The day wore on; and Teresa noticed that the Doña kept looking at her

anxiously, in a way that she used to look at her when she was a child and

had a bad cold.

In the afternoon she took a book and went down to the orchard; but she

could not read. The bloom was on the plums; the apples were reddening.

So silently they one to th’other come,

As colours steale into the Pear or Plum.

At about four o’clock there was the sound of footsteps behind her, and

looking round she saw David. He was very white.

“I’ve come to say good-bye,” he said.

“_Good-bye?_ But I thought ... you were staying some days.”

“No ... I doubt I must be getting back. I told Mrs. Lane last night, I’m

going by the five-thirty.”

He stood gazing down at her, looking very troubled.

“Why have you suddenly changed your plans?” she said, in a very low voice.

He gazed at her in silence for a few seconds, and then said, “I’m not so

sure if I had any ... well, any _plans_, so to speak, to change ... at

least, I hope ... but, anyway, I’m going ... now,” and he paused.

She felt as if she were losing hold of things, as in the last few seconds

of chloroform, before one goes off.

“That play of yours ... that Don ... he was a great sinner,” he was

saying.

“He repented,” she said, in a small, dry voice.

“After ... he’d had what he wanted. That’s a nice sort of repentance!”

and he laughed harshly.

From far away a cock, then another, gave its strange, double-edged cry—a

cry, which, like Hermes, is at once the herald of the morning and all

its radiant denizens, and the marshaller to their dim abode of the light

troupe of passionate ghosts: Clerk Saunders and Maid Margaret, Cathy and

Heathcliff.

He laughed again, this time a little wildly: “Hark to the voice of one in

the wilderness crying, ‘repent ye!’ Do you remember Newman’s translation

of the _Æterne Rerum Conditor_? How does it go again? Wait ...

Hark! for Chanticleer is singing,

Hark! he chides the lingering sun

Something ... something ... wait ... how does it go....

Shrill it sounds, the storm relenting

Soothes the weary seaman’s ears;

Once it wrought a great repenting

In that flood of Peter’s tears.”

Its rhythm, when his voice stopped, continued rumbling dully along the

surface of her mind.... Once it wrought a great repenting in that flood

of Peter’s tears.... Once it wrought a.... Funny! It was the same rhythm

as a _Toccata_ of _Galuppi’s_....

Oh! Galuppi, Baldassaro, this is very hard to find

Once it wrought a great repenting in that flood of Peter’s....

It would have to be “in that flood of Peter’s _mind_....” Not very

good.... What was he saying now?

“I remember your saying once that the Scotch thought an awful lot about

the sinfulness of sin.... I firmly believe that the power of remitting

sin has been given to the priests of God ... but are we, like that

knight, going to ... well to exploit, that grand expression of God’s

mercy to His creatures, the Sacrament of Penance? Well? So you don’t

think that knight was a bad man?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” she said wearily. “Good, bad ... what does it all

mean?”

“You know fine what it all means. You wrote that play,” a ghost of a

smile came into his eyes. “Well ... I suppose ... it’s getting late ...”

he sighed drearily, and then held out his hand.

For a few seconds she stood as if hypnotised, staring at him. Then in a

rush, the waste, the foolishness of it all swept over her.

“David! David!” she cried convulsively, seizing his arm. “David! What

is it all about? Don’t you see?... there’s you, here’s me. Plasencia’s

up there where we’ll all soon be having tea and smoking cigarettes. Oh,

it’s a plot! it’s a plot! Don’t be taken in ... why, it’s mad! You’re not

going to become a _priest_!” Then her words were stifled by hysterical

gasps.

He took hold firmly of both of her wrists. “Hush, you wee thing, hush!

You’re havering, you know, just havering. _You_—Sister Pilar—you’re not

going to try and wreck a vocation! You’d never do that! You know fine

that there’s nothing so grand as sacrifice—to offer up youth and love

to God. It’s not a sacrifice if it doesn’t cost us dear. I don’t think,

somehow, that a bread made of wheat would satisfy you and me long.

Remember, my dear, this isn’t everything—there’s another life. Hush now!

Haven’t you a handkerchief? Here’s mine, then.”

With a wistful smile he watched her wipe her eyes, and then he said,

“Well, I doubt ... I must be going. The motor will be there. God bless

you ... Pilar,” he looked at her, then turned slowly and walked away in

the direction of the house.

She made as if to run after him, and then, with a gesture of despair,

sank down upon the ground.

So silently they one to th’other come,

As colours steale into the Pear or Plum,

And, Aire-like, leave no pression to be seen

Where e’re they met, or parting place has been.

Well, it was over. She had shut up Life into a plot, and there had been

a counterplot, the liturgical plot into which Rome compresses life’s

vast psychic stratification; and, somehow or other, her plot and the

counterplot had become one.

Why had he looked so happy when he arrived—only yesterday? Was it joy at

the thought of so soon saying his first mass? She would never know. The

dead, plotting through a plot, had silenced him for ever.

Oh, foolish race of myth-makers! Starving, though the plain is golden

with wheat; though their tent is pitched between two rivers, dying of

thirst; calling for the sun when it is dark, and for the moon when it is

midday.

* * * * *

The sun was setting, and the shadows were growing long. Some one was

coming. It was the Doña, looking, in the evening light, unusually

monumental, and, as on that September afternoon last year when the

children were clinging round her skirts, symbolic. But now Teresa knew of

what she was the symbol.

She came up to her and laid her hand on her head. “Come in, my child;

it’s getting chilly. I’ve had a fire lit in your room.”

PARIS,

4 RUE DE CHEVREUSE,

1923.

[Illustration]

GLASGOW: W. COLLINS SONS AND CO. LTD.

FOOTNOTES

[1] The _Morería_ was the quarter in Spanish towns assigned to

Moorish colonists.

[2] A Spaniard who could prove that his ancestry was free from any taint

of Jewish or Moorish blood, was known as an “Old Christian.”

[3] It was looked upon as a grave crime for a Christian to do this.

[4] It was a superstition of the Middle Ages that crows were born pure

white.

[5] _Alguaciles_: the Spanish equivalent in the Middle Ages to policemen.

[Illustration]

Messrs. COLLINS’ Latest Novels

_Messrs. COLLINS will always be glad to send their book lists regularly

to readers who will send name and address._

Crown 8vo. 7/6 net Cloth

Sayonara

JOHN PARIS

_Kimono_, Mr. John Paris’s first novel, has proved one of the most

remarkably successful books published since the war. It has been a “best

seller” in England and America; it has become famous all over the Far

East and in Canada and Australia, besides being translated into several

foreign languages. Its successor—_Sayonara_—has been eagerly awaited.

The theme is based on the familiar aphorism that “East is East and West

is West,” and that any attempt to reconcile them usually means disaster.

Here again, as in _Kimono_, are found the most vivid pictures of Japan,

old and new; Tokyo and its underworld, a powerful picture of Japanese

farm life, and the cruel slavery of the “Yoshiwara.”

Told by an Idiot

ROSE MACAULAY

Author of _Dangerous Ages_, _Mystery at Geneva_, _Potterism_, etc.

Miss Macaulay here presents her philosophy of life, through the

examination of the sharply contrasted careers of the sharply contrasted

members of a large family, from 1879 to 1923.

The Imperturbable Duchess And Other Stories

J. D. BERESFORD

Author of _The Prisoners of Hartling_, _An Imperfect Mother_, etc.

This is the first collection of magazine stories which Mr. Beresford has

published. In “An Author’s Advice,” which he has written as a foreword,

he deals searchingly with the technique of the modern short story, and

shows how drastically the type of story to-day is dictated by the editors

of the great American magazines.

The Hat of Destiny

Mrs. T. P. O’CONNOR

“The best light novel I ever read. The plot is so original, the

characters so sharply drawn and interesting, the interest so sustained,

and the whole thing so witty and amusing, that I could not put it down.”

So wrote Miss Gertrude Atherton to the author of _The Hat of Destiny_.

Oh, that hat! that incomparably fascinating hat, what dire rivalries it

engendered, what domestic tribulations it sardonically plotted when it

arrived in Newport amongst those cosmopolitan butterflies!

The Soul of Kol Nikon

ELEANOR FARJEON

Is the fantasy of a boy in a Scandinavian village, who from his birth is

treated as a pariah because his mother declares that he is a Changeling.

He himself grows up under the same belief, and the story, treated in the

vein of folklore, leaves it an open question whether there is some truth

in it, or whether it is the result of public opinion upon a distorted

imagination. The tale is told with all the poetry, charm, and imaginative

insight which made _Martin Pippin in the Apple-Orchard_ such a wonderful

success.

The Richest Man

EDWARD SHANKS

Though in the interval Mr. Shanks has published volumes of verse and

criticism, this brilliantly clever study is the only novel he has written

since 1920.

Anthony Dare

ARCHIBALD MARSHALL

With _Anthony Dare_ Mr. Marshall returns to the creation of that type

of novel with which his name is most popularly associated, after two

interesting experiments of another kind, that genial “Thick Ear” shocker,

_Big Peter_, and that charming and very successful phantasy, _Pippin_.

It is a study of a boy’s character during several critical years of its

development. The scene is chiefly laid in a rich northern suburb.

The Peregrine’s Saga: and Other Stories

HENRY WILLIAMSON

Illustrated by WARWICK REYNOLDS

There have been other stories about birds and animals, but seldom before

has an author combined the gifts of great prose writing and originality

of vision, with a first-hand knowledge of wild life. Mr. Williamson knows

flowers, old men, and children as well as he knows falcons, otters,

hounds, horses, badgers, “mice, and other small deer.”

A Perfect Day

BOHUN LYNCH

5/- net

Author of _Knuckles and Gloves_, etc.

Has any one ever experienced one really perfectly happy day? Mr. Lynch

has made the interesting experiment of showing his hero, throughout one

long summer day, in a state of perfect bliss. The perfect day is a very

simple one and well within the range of possibility.

The Counterplot

HOPE MIRRLEES

_The Counterplot_ is a study of the literary temperament. Teresa Lane,

watching the slow movement of life manifesting itself in the changing

inter-relations of her family, is teased by the complexity of the

spectacle, and comes to realise that her mind will never know peace till,

by transposing the problem into art, she has reduced it to its permanent

essential factors.

The Groote Park Murder

FREEMAN WILLS CROFTS

Author of _The Cask_.

_The Groote Park Murder_ is as fine a book as _The Cask_, and there

can be no higher praise. Here again a delightfully ingenious plot is

masterly handled. From the moment the body of “Albert Smith” is found in

the tunnel at Middelberg, the police of South Africa and subsequently of

Scotland, find themselves faced with a crime of extreme ingenuity and

complexity, the work of a super-criminal, who, as nearly as possible,

successfully evades justice.

The Kang-He Vase

J. S. FLETCHER

Who murdered the man found roped to the gibbet on Gallows Tree Point? Who

stole Miss Ellingham’s famous Kang-He Vase? What was Uncle Keziah doing

at Middlebourne? This is the first novel by Mr. J. S. Fletcher we have

had the pleasure of publishing, and we are very glad to say that we have

contracted for several more books from his able pen.

Ramshackle House

HULBERT FOOTNER

Author of _The Owl Taxi_, _The Deaves Affair_, etc.

This is Hulbert Footner’s finest mystery story. It tells how Pen Broome

saved her lover, accused of the brutal murder of a friend; how she saved

him first from the horde of detectives searching for him in the woods

round Ramshackle House, and then, when his arrest proved inevitable, how,

with indomitable courage and resource, she forged the chain of evidence

which proved him to have been the victim of a diabolical plot. A charming

love story and a real “thriller.”

The Finger-Post

Mrs. HENRY DUDENEY

Author of _Beanstalk_, etc.

The scene of this book is the Sussex Weald, and the story is concerned

with the Durrants, who have for generations been thatchers. The book

opens with the birth of a second boy, Joseph, a sickly, peculiar lad,

considered to be half-witted. The theme is his struggle against his lot,

his humble station, his crazy body, the mournful demands of his spirit.

When he becomes a man, his clever brain develops and his worldly progress

bewilders his relatives and neighbours—all of them still refusing to

believe that he is not the fool they have always declared him to be.

A Bird in a Storm

E. MARIA ALBANESI

Author of _Roseanne_, etc.

Anne Ranger, brought up in a very worldly atmosphere, finds herself

confronted by a most difficult problem and coerced by her former school

friend—Joyce Pleybury, who has drifted into a bad groove—to take an

oath of secrecy which reacts on Anne’s own life in almost tragic

fashion, shattering her happiness from the very day of her marriage, and

thereafter exposing her like a bird in a storm to be swept hither and

thither, unable to find safe ground on which to stand.

Mary Beaudesert, V.S.

KATHARINE TYNAN

Author of _A Mad Marriage_, etc.

Is the story of an aristocratic young woman who feels the call of the

suffering animal creation and obeys it, leaving tenderly loved parents,

an ideal home, and all a girl’s heart could desire, to qualify as a

veterinary surgeon. How she carries out her vocation is told in this

story, which is full of the love of animals.