Chapter 14

Juanitois 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 pèreIl 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 fillesQui n’ont pas d’ami.Il ne chante pas pour moiJ’en ai un, Dieu merci,Serai-je nonnette, oui ou non?Serai-je nonnette, je crois que non!

Derrière chez mon pèreIl est un bois taillis,Serai-je nonnette, oui ou non?Serai-je nonnette, je crois que non!

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 fillesQui n’ont pas d’ami.Il ne chante pas pour moiJ’en ai un, Dieu merci,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!

EnterDennys, 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 (throwsback 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 ofPepitaandJuanitowho 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? (PepitaandJuanitoexchange 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 atSister 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 toSister Pilar). You Spaniards pass at once for the most doubting and the most credulous of the nations. You believe everyword 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 bewilderedSister Pilar.) I think that will keep them quiet and occupied a little space. Well, I suppose your sisters are having theirsiestaand 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 thatrang 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 andmanjar-blancain 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.

PepitaandJuanitocome running up.

Pepita: We waited and waited, but the Moornevercame!

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 anollamade 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 allToll, toll, as we carry the pall(Weep, doñas, weep.)For Don Juan the fairy(Chantmiserere.)The lovely and braveIs cold in his grave.

Bells of Sevilla, Carmona, and all

Toll, toll, as we carry the pall

(Weep, doñas, weep.)

For Don Juan the fairy

(Chantmiserere.)

The lovely and brave

Is cold in his grave.

They fall down.

Juanito: But we have none to sing the lastcoplafor us that we may spring up again.DearSister Pilar, couldn’t youonce?

She smilingly shakes her head.

Dennys: Come, daughter, be merciful.

Her expression hardens and she again shakes her head. In the meantime,Sister Assumcionhas 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 thegloria.)With a caper so braveLeaps up from the grave.

Into the earth, priest, lower the bier,

The glory of Seville is withered and sere

(Weep, doñas, weep.)

But Don Juan Tenorio

(Carol thegloria.)

With a caper so brave

Leaps up from the grave.

They all jump up laughing.Dennysstares atSister Assumcionwith a bold and, at the same time, dazzled admiration. The sun seems suddenly to shine more brightly upon them and the children.Sister Pilaris in the shadow.

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 gloriosaVirgen Santa, preciosa,Cómo eres piadosaTodavía!

Ave Maria gloriosa

Virgen Santa, preciosa,

Cómo eres piadosa

Todavía!

Sister Assumcionenters as he sings and walks hurriedly towards the wall.

Sister Assumcion(sings):

Gracia plena, sin mancilla,Abogada,Por la tu merced, Señora,Faz esta maravillaSeñalada.

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 ontrovaresand 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 onher?

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 earsand 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 theConsecrationaright, 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 layblack 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 crimsonmarlotaand 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 Spanishtrovar, 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, ashis 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 theCount 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 itspatioand 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’sthe 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, pourmehurtling 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 littleaccidiayou 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 Pilarhas 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 Imustspeak; 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,andthe 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 thepatio, 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 ahouse 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 fromAmadisand 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 envyyou?

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 thewarp 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 Pilarstarts violently.

A room inTrotaconventos’shouse. 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.Trotaconventosis darning a gorget and talking toDon 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 thewing, 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,yourlove 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 oflos Abades. Come, drag me before thealcaldeand 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 richand 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’llnever 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’sfavourite 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 Catholicdoremi, I’d not be surprised to hear coins fromyour pursewhine ‘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 Salomondoes not answer, andTrotaconventoslooks 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 mightgive 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.

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