Trotaconventossinks wearily down into a chair.Don Salomongazes at her in silence for a time, then comes up and lays his hand on her shoulder.
Trotaconventossinks wearily down into a chair.Don Salomongazes at her in silence for a time, then comes up and lays his hand on her shoulder.
Don Salomon(gravely): Old friend, from my heart I envy you. A wise man who had travelled over all the earth came to the court of a certain caliph, and the caliph asked him whom of all the men he had met on his wanderings he envied most; and the wise man answered: ‘Oh, Caliph, ’twas an old blind pauper whose wife and children were all dead.’ And when the caliph asked him why he envied one in such sorry plight, he answered, ‘because the only evil thing is fear, and he had nought to fear.’ You, too, have nothing to fear, except you fear the greatest gift of God—sleep.
Exit quietly.
Exit quietly.
Trotaconventos(wildly): Nothing to fear! Oh, my poor black soul ... hell-fire ... the devil hiding like a bug in my shroud ... oh, Blessed Virgin, save me from hell-fire!
The ghost ofDon Juan Tenorioappears.
The ghost ofDon Juan Tenorioappears.
Don Juan Tenorio: There is no hell.
Trotaconventos: Who are you? Speak!
Don Juan Tenorio: I am the broad path that leads to salvation; I am the bread made of wheat; I am the burgeoning of buds and the fall of the leaf; I am the little white wine of Toro and the red wine of Madrigal; I am the bronze on the cheek of the labourer and his dreamless, midday sleep beneath the chestnut tree; I am the mirth at wedding-wakes; I am the dance of the Hours whose rhythm lulls kings and beggars, nuns, and goatherds on the hills, giving them peace, and freeing them from dreams; I am innocence; I am immortality; I am Don Juan Tenorio.
Trotaconventos: Don Juan Tenorio? Then you come from hell.
Don Juan Tenorio: I have spoken: there is no hell. There is no hell and there is no heaven; there is nought but the green earth. But men are arrogant and full of shame, and they hide truth in dreams.
Trotaconventos: Ay, but what of the black sins that weigh down my soul?
Don Juan Tenorio: Dreams are the only sin.
Trotaconventos: What, then, of death?
Don Juan Tenorio: Every death is cancelled by a birth; hence there is no death.
Trotaconventos: But I must surely die, and that ere long.
Don Juan Tenorio: But if others live? Prisoners! Prisoners! Locked up inside yourselves; like childrenborn in a dark tower, as their parents were before them. And round and round they run, and beat their little hands against the wall, or stare at the old faded arras upon which fingers, dead a hundred years ago, have pictured quaint shapes that hint at flowers and birds and ships. And all the time the creaking door is on the jar, the gaolers long since dead.
The ghost ofSister Isabelappears.
The ghost ofSister Isabelappears.
Sister Isabel: Mother!
Trotaconventos(in horror): Isabel!
Sister Isabel: I come from Purgatory.
Don Juan Tenorio: Still a prisoner, bound by the dreams of the living.
Sister Isabel: As they are by the dead.
Trotaconventos: Why do you visit me, daughter?
Sister Isabel: To bid you save my little son from circumcision, my daughter from concubinage to the infidels.
Trotaconventos: How?
Sister Isabel: By preserving the virginity of my sisters in religion.
Don Juan Tenorio: Virginity! What of Christ’s fig-tree?
Sister Isabel: Demon, what doyouknow of Christ?
Don Juan Tenorio: Once we were one, but....
Sister Isabel: Lying spirit!
Don Juan Tenorio: That part of me that was he, was sucked bloodless by the insatiable dreams of man.
Sister Isabel: Mother, hearken not....
Don Juan Tenorio: Hearken not....
Sister Isabel: To this lying spirit.
Don Juan Tenorio: To this spirit drugged with dreams.
Sister Isabel: Else you will forfeit....
Don Juan Tenorio: Else you will forfeit....
Sister Isabel: Your immortal soul.
Don Juan Tenorio: Your immortal body.
Sister Isabel: All is vanity,
Don Juan Tenorio: All is vanity.
Sister Isabel: Save only the death,
Don Juan Tenorio: Save only the death,
Sister Isabel: And the resurrection,
Don Juan Tenorio: And the resurrection,
Sister Isabel: Of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Don Juan Tenorio: Of crops and trees and flowers and the race of man.
Sister Isabel: Remember that they fight to lose who fight the dead.
Don Juan Tenorio: Remember that they fight to lose who fight the Spirit of Life.
A violent knocking at the door. The ghosts ofDon Juan TenorioandSister Isabelvanish.Trotaconventossits up and rubs her eyes.
A violent knocking at the door. The ghosts ofDon Juan TenorioandSister Isabelvanish.Trotaconventossits up and rubs her eyes.
Trotaconventos: I have been dreaming ... life ... death ... my head turns. And what is this knocking?
Voice outside: Old stinking bird-lime! Heart-hammer! Magpie! Bumble-bee! Street trailer! Cuirass of rotten wood! Curry-comb! Corpus dragon! I bid you open, d’ye hear?
Trotaconventos: Why, I do believe ’tis that ardent lover, Don Manuel de Lara. Can the baggage have shied from the tryst?
Voice from outside: Gutter crone! Gutter crone! The fiends of hell gnaw your marrow! I want in!
Trotaconventos: Anon, good knight, anon! Well ... shall I throw cold water on his hopes and save my soul? Nay, Isabel, ’tis too late; one cannot makeshepherds’ pipes out of this old barley straw ... and yet ... visions of sleep! Nay, through my living daughter will I taste again the old joys and snap my fingers at ... ghosts.
Opens the door.Don Manuel de Larabursts into the room.
Opens the door.Don Manuel de Larabursts into the room.
Don Manuel de Lara: Old hag, what have you done to me? You have been riding among the signs of the Zodiac ... I know ... and tampering with the Scales, putting sweetness in each, then throwing in the moon to turn the balance. Oh, you have given me philtres ... I know, I know ... some varlet bribed with a scarlet cloak, then strange liquid dreams curdling the rough juice of the Spanish grape ... and you all the while jeering and cackling at me! (seizes her roughly by the shoulders.) How dare you meddle with my dreams? You play with loaded dice.
Trotaconventos(soothingly): Wo! ass! Let me rub thee down, ass of my wife’s brother! You must have got an ague; the water of the Guadalquivir and Seville figs play strange tricks with Castilian stomachs in May. A little prayer to St. Bartholomew ... or better still, a very soothing draught I learnt to brew long since from a Jew doctor. Why, sir knight, what is this talk of love philtres? The only receiptIknow for such is a gill of neat ankle or merry eye to three gills of hot young blood. And have you no thanks for your old witch? I cannot, let evil tongues wag as they will, drum the moon from the heavens, but trust old Trotaconventos to draw a nun from her cloister!
Don Manuel de Lara(who has been standing as if stunned): Aye, there’s the rub ... I’d have the moon dragged from the heavens (laughs wildly, then turns upon her violently). Oh, I’ll shake your blacksoul out of its prison of rotted bones. I am encompassed all around with your spells.
Trotaconventos: Don Manuel, you are sick. Lie down on this couch and take a cool draught of reason, for it, at least, is a medicinal stream. You have engendered your own dreams, there have been no philtres or spells. The abbot dines off his singing, and a procuress must suit all tastes, and if a silly serving-wench comes to me a-sighing and a-sobbing for some pert groom with a heron’s feather in his cap, or trembling lest Pedro in her distant village is giving his garlic-scented kisses to another maid, why, then I know nothing will salve her red eyes but sunflower seeds culled when Venus is in the house of the Ram, or a mumbling backwards of the psalms, on a waxen heart to melt over the fire. But these are but foolish toys for the vulgar, and the devil does not reveal his secrets to an Old Christian who goes to mass every Sunday and on feast-days too. You are not bewitched, Don Manuel, except it be by a pair of gray eyes smiling beneath a nun’s veil. Was she coy, perchance? Why, coyness in a maid....
Don Manuel de Lara(laughing bitterly): Coy? (impatiently.) I came here all hot with projects and decision, but now it is all flowing out of me like wine from a leaking pig-skin, and I seem bereft of will and desire, as sometimes on the field of battle when I fight in a dream, regardless if the issue be life or death. (Shaking himself.) The fault lies not with you, good dame; what you set out to do you have done, the which I shall bear in mind. As to spells and philtres, they say I was born under Saturn with the moon in the ascendant, and, whether it be true or no, some evil star distills dark, poisonous vapours round the nettles and rank roots that grow in the dark places of my soul, the which some chance word will draw from theirhiding-place and ... in plain words, your nun is all your words painted her, but falls far short of the lineaments lent her by my fancy; for which it is not you but that same unbridled fancy, that is to blame. In that you compassed the meeting, you shall have rich cloths and a well-filled purse, but....
Trotaconventos(her indignation boiling over): Jesus! Here is a dainty Don! Comes far short of the linen lent her byyourfancy! Was then her linen foul? Or rather, are you like Alfonso the Wise, and had you had the making of her would you have fashioned her better than God? I know your breed; as the proverb says, it is but a fool that wants a bread not made with wheat. In truth, the girl is well-formed, sprightly and hot-blooded. I know no damsel can so well....
Don Manuel de Lara: I have told you dame, you shall be well paid for your pains. But ... but ... there is another matter with regard to which I would fain....
Trotaconventos: And so you deem old Trotaconventos cares for naught but cloths and purses! And what of the pride in my craft? Upon my soul! My daintiest morsel sniffed at all round, and then Don Cat, with a hump of his back, his tail arched, and his lips drawn back in disdain....
Don Manuel de Lara: Come, dame, I am pressed for time. I ask your pardon if I have been over nice, and you have no need to take umbrage for your craft. I ... would ... would ask your help ... (sinks into a chair and covers his face with his hands) ... my God, I cannot. The words choke me.
There is a knock at the door.
There is a knock at the door.
Voice from outside: Hola! Hecate! Goddess of the cross-roads! Open in your graciousness.
Trotaconventos: ’Tis a stranger’s voice. (Aside) This time ’tis a case of better the devil one doesnotknow.
Opens the door. EnterDennys.
Opens the door. EnterDennys.
Dennys: Hail! Medea of Castille! Your fame has drawn me all the way from France. Why, ’twill soon rival the fame of your St. James, and from every corner of Christendom love-sick wights and ladies will come to you on pilgrimage.
Trotaconventos(laughing and eyeing him with evident favour): A pox on your flowery tongue! I know you French of old ... hot tongues and cold, hard hearts. Oh, you saucy knave; you! But see, your cloak is wet with dew. Come, I will shake it for you. (Draws off his cloak and at the same time slips her hand down his neck and tickles him).
Dennys: A truce! A truce! Thus you could unman me to yield you all my gold and tell you all my secrets. (Wriggles out of the cloak, leaving it in her hands.) Do you know the ballad of the Roman knight, Joseph, and Doña Potiphar?
Trotaconventos: Ay, that I do; and a poor puling ballad it is too! Butyouare no Sir Joseph, my pretty lad ... while others that I know ... (glances resentfully atDon Manuel de Lara, who is still sitting with his head buried in his hands.Dennys, following her glance, catches sight of him.)
Dennys: Some poor, love-sick wight? Why, then, are we guild brothers, and of that guildyouare the virgin, fairer and more potent than she of the kings or of the waters; as with fists and cudgels we will maintain against all other guilds at Holy Week. Oh! I have heard of your miracles. That pious young widow with a virtue as unyielding as her body was soft, how....
Trotaconventos: Out on you, you saucy Frenchman! It would take a French tongue to call Trotaconventos a virgin. Why, before you were born ... come, I’ll tell you a secret. (She whispers something in his ear. He bursts out laughing.)
Dennys: Holy Mother of God! You should have given suck to Don Ovid. Why,thatbeats all the Frenchfabliaux. Well, now as to my business. You must know I had a wager that, disguised as a mendicant friar, I would visit undiscovered twenty of the convents of Seville....
Trotaconventos(chuckling): A bold and merry wager!
Dennys: Ay, but that is but the prelude. In one of these convents (Don Manueldrops his hands from his face and sits up straight in his chair) I fell into an ambush laid by Don Cupid himself.
Trotaconventos(bitterly): To be sure! And so you come to old Trotaconventos. To be a procuress is to be the cow at the wedding, for ever sacrificed to the junketings of others. ’Tis other folks’ burdens killed the ass. Well, the time is short, the time is short, if you want Trotaconventos’s aid.
Dennys: Why, despite her habit, ’twas the fairest maid I have seen this side the Pyrenees, and I swear ’tis a sin she should live a nun. I fell to talking and laughing with her; but though she is a ripe plum, I warrant, ’tis for another hand to shake the branch. Now you, mother, I know, go in and out of every convent in Seville.... So will you be my most cunning and subtle ambassador?
Trotaconventos: Ay, but ambassadors are given services of gold, and sumpter-mules laden with crimson cloths, and retinues of servants, and apes and tumblers and dancers, and purses of gold. How willyouequip your ambassador?
Dennys: Atrovar’sfortune is his tongue and lips; so with my lips I pay. (He gives her three smacking kisses.)
Trotaconventos: Oh, you French jackanapes! Oh, you saucy ballad-monger! So you hold your kisses weigh likemaravedis, do you? Well, well, I have ever said that the lips of a fine lad hold the sweetest wine in Spain. Now you must acquaint me more fully with your business, if you would have me speed it.
Dennys: Why! You know it all. I love a nun of the Convent of San Miguel, and....
Don Manuel de Larasprings from his bench and seizes him by the shoulders.
Don Manuel de Larasprings from his bench and seizes him by the shoulders.
Don Manuel de Lara: You scurvy, whoreson, lily-livered, shameless son of France!France!The teeming dam of whores and ballad-mongers, whose king flies from his foes shaking a banner broidered with the lilies of a frail woman’s garden-close. You are in Castille, where lions guard our virgins in strong towers, and e’er you tamper with the virtue of a professed virgin of Spain, I will hew you into little pieces to feed my hounds. (He shakes him violently.)
Trotaconventos(pulling him back by his cloak): Let go, you solemn, long-jowled, finicky Judas! You fox in priest’s habit on the silver centre-piece of a king’s table! Don Cat turned monk that he might the better catch the monastery mice! Foul Templar escaped from Sodom and Gomorrah! Who areyouto take up the glove for Seville nuns?
Don Manuel, paying no heed toTrotaconventos, holdsDennyswith one hand, and with the other draws his dagger and places its point on his throat.
Don Manuel, paying no heed toTrotaconventos, holdsDennyswith one hand, and with the other draws his dagger and places its point on his throat.
Don Manuel de Lara: Now, blackbird of St. Bénoit, you’ll tell me the name of the nun you would seduce. D’ye hear? The name of the nun you would seduce!
Dennys(gasping): Sister Assumcion.
Trotaconventos: Ah!
Don Manuellets go ofDennys, who, pale and gasping, is supported to the couch byTrotaconventos, she mingling the while words of condolence withDennysand imprecations against theDon.
Don Manuellets go ofDennys, who, pale and gasping, is supported to the couch byTrotaconventos, she mingling the while words of condolence withDennysand imprecations against theDon.
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 thistrovar, 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 atrovarin Spain. I know well, necessity makes one embrace poverty and obedience, like the Franciscans, but I never learnt till now that atrovarmust 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, maybeIcan afford it. But think you I’ll allow a sinewless Frenchjongleurto 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.Dennystaps his forehead meaningly and winks atTrotaconventos.
Sits down on the bench and once more buries his face in his hands.Dennystaps his forehead meaningly and winks atTrotaconventos.
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 thehouse 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 fromourlove, 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 ofDon 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 forallmy 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 Evegave 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? (EyesDon Manuelquizzically.) Adieu.
Exit.
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, 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.
Trotaconventospicks up his scarlet cloak which he has let drop and waves in his face.
Trotaconventospicks up his scarlet cloak which he has let drop and waves in his face.
Trotaconventos: Come, come, brave bull! And has Love, thebandillero, 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 theVega, 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 haverubies 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 Frenchtrovar. Think you I have two?
Don Manuel de Lara(as if stunned): Not two? To the Frenchtrovar?
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.
Exit.
The orchard of San Miguel the following evening at nine o’clock. Near the postern standsDon Manuel de Lara, motionless, his arms folded, his cloak drawn round the lower part of his face. Towards him hurriesSister Assumcion.
The orchard of San Miguel the following evening at nine o’clock. Near the postern standsDon Manuel de Lara, motionless, his arms folded, his cloak drawn round the lower part of his face. Towards him hurriesSister Assumcion.
Sister Assumcion: Good evening, friartrovar... 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 thetrovar, 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 thetrovar.
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 thetrovar... 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 joysâ€.... 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,shemight 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 Assumcionshrugs her shoulders, looks at him quizzically, and exit. A few minutes elapse, during whichDon Manuelstands motionless; thenSister Pilarenters; she gives a slight bow and waits.
Sister Assumcionshrugs her shoulders, looks at him quizzically, and exit. A few minutes elapse, during whichDon Manuelstands motionless; thenSister Pilarenters; 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....Iobey 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.)
(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 toshow it you! It was the height of a daffodil when I took the veil. When we were children, you know, we were told anexemplumof 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 youthem?
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.
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 greenVegadotted with brown villages and stretching away towards theSierra.
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: Myotherone? 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 sometimesdreamof 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 thetrovares—notthe 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 inyourdreams?
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 Pilarlooks at him suspiciously, but his expression remains impenetrable.
Sister Pilarlooks 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 theworld; wedolive 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 MorerÃa, a sword in one hand, a burning brand in the other.