Chapter XII: Act I: Scene I

_The court of the Convent of San Miguel: its floor is diapered
with brightly-coloured tiles; in its centre is a fountain,
round which are set painted pots of sweet basil, myrtle, etc.,
its walls are decorated with arabesques and mottoes in Arabic
characters; against one wall is a little shrine containing
a wooden virgin. SISTER ASSUMCION is reading aloud from
“Amadis de Gaul” to four nuns who are sitting round on rugs
embroidering. A Moorish slave is keeping the flies from them
with a large fan._

_Sister Assumcion_ (_reads_): The hand then drew her in, and she was as joyful as though the whole world had been given her, not so much for the prize of beauty, which had been won, as that she had thus proved herself the worthy mate of Amadis, having, like him, entered the forbidden chamber, and deprived all others of the hope of that glory.

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

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

_Sister Assumcion_: More fool they then if they have; we may confess it now that we have reached the colophon. Better absolution for a sheep than a lamb. (_They laugh_).

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

_Third Nun_: Ay, praise be to heaven for the humours that swell old abbesses’ legs and make them keep a-bed!

_First Nun_: Truly, since she took to her bed, there have been fine doings in this house—it was but yesterday that we were reckoning that it must be close on five months since the Prioress has kept frater.

_Third Nun_: And Zuleica there, sent all through Lent to the _Morería_[1] or the Jews’ butcher for red meat ... and she was swearing it was all for her ape Gerinaldo!

_First Nun_: Yes, and the other night I could have sworn I heard the strains of a Moorish zither coming from her room and the tapping heels of a _juglaresa_.

_Fourth Nun_ (_with a sigh_): This house has never been the same since the sad fall of Sister Isabel.

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

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

_Third Nun_: Ah, well, as the common folk, and (_with rather a spiteful smile_) our dear Sister Assumcion would say: Who sleeps with dogs rises with fleas—and if we sin venially, why, the only wonder is that ’tis not mortally.

_Second Nun_: Be that as it may, if rumours reach the ears of the Archbishop there’ll be a rare shower of penances at the next visitation. Why, the house will echo for weeks to the mournful strains of _Placebo_ and _Dirige_, and there will be few of us, I fear, who will not forfeit our black veils for a season.

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

_Sister Assumcion_ (_scornfully_): Aye, winds strong enough to level the Giralda could not blow off the black veil of Sister Pilar.

_Third Nun_: And yet ... she is a Guzman, and the streets are bloody from their swords; they are a wild crew.

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

_Sister Assumcion_ (_mockingly_): St. Martin! To the rescue of your little bird!... as the common folk and (_with an ironical bow to the third nun_) Sister Assumcion would say.

_First Nun_: What’s that?

_Sister Assumcion_: Why, it is but a little story that I sometimes think of when I look at Sister Pilar.

_Second Nun_: Let’s hear the story.

_Sister Assumcion_: Well, they say that one hot day a little martin perched on the ground under a tree, and, spreading out his wings and ruffling his little feathers, as proud as any canon’s lady at a procession in Holy Week, he piped out: Were the sky to fall I could hold it up on my wings! And at that very moment a leaf from the tree dropped on to his head, and so scared the poor little bird that he was all of a tremble, and he spread his wings and away he flew, crying: St. Martin! To the rescue of your little bird! And that is what we say in the country when folks carry their heads higher than their neighbours. (_They laugh._)

(_Pause._)

_Second Nun_: And yet has she kindly motions. Do you remember when the little novice Ines was crying her eyes out because she had not the wherewithal to buy her habit, and thought to die with shame in that she would need have to make her profession by pittances? Well, and what must Sister Pilar do but go to the friend of Ines, little Maria Desquivel, whose father, they say, is one of the richest merchants in Seville, feigning that for the good of her soul she would fain consecrate a purse of money, and some sundries bequeathed her by an aunt, to the profession of two novices, and said that she would take it very kind if Maria and Ines would be these two. And so little Ines was furnished out with habit, and feather-bed, and quilt all powdered with stags’ heads and roses, and a coffer of painted leather, and a dozen spoons, and a Dominican friar to preach the sermon at her profession, without expending one blush of shame; in that she shared the debt with her rich friend. And then, too, with children she is wonderfully tender.

_Fourth Nun_ (_with a little shiver_): But that cold gray eye like glass! I verily believe her thoughts are all ... for the last things.

_SISTER ASSUMCION gives a little snort. Silence. SISTER
PILAR comes out of the convent behind the group of nuns, and
approaches them unobserved._

_Fourth Nun_ (_musing_): And yet, that book, by a monk long dead, about the miracles of Our Lady ... it shows her wondrous lenient to sin, let but the sinners be loud enough in her praise ... there was the thief she saved from the gallows because he had said so many Aves.

_Sister Pilar_: But _he_ was not in religion.

(_They all give starts of surprise._)

_Second Nun_: Jesus! How you startled me!

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

_Sister Assumcion_ (_a note of nervousness perceptible through the insolence of her voice_): And are those in religion to have, forsooth, a smaller share in the spiritual treasure of the Church than thieves?

_SISTER PILAR sits down without answering._

_Second Nun_ (_smiling_): Well?

_Sister Pilar_: They say there was once a giant, so strong that he could have lifted the Sierra Morena and placed them on the Pyrenees, but one day he happened on a little stone no bigger than my nail, but so firmly was it embedded in the ground that all his mighty strength availed him nothing to make it budge an inch.

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

_Sister Pilar_ (_with a shrug_): Give it whatever meaning tallies with your humour. (_She opens a book and begins to read it._)

_Sister Assumcion_ (_yawning_): I’m hungry. Shall I send Zuleica to beg some marzipan from the Cellaress, or shall I possess my soul and belly in patience until dinner-time?

_First Nun_ (_jocosely_): For shame! Gluttony is one of the deadly sins, is it not, Sister Pilar?

_SISTER PILAR keeps her eyes fixed on her book without
answering. JAIME RODRIGUEZ enters by door to left. Flutter
among nuns._

_Jaime Rodriguez_: Christ and His Mother be with you, my daughters. (_Sits down and mops his brow._) ’Tis wondrous cool and pleasant in your court. (_He gives a shy glance at SISTER PILAR, but she continues to keep her eyes on her book. Turns to fourth nun._) Well, daughter, and what of the cope you promised me?

_Second Nun_ (_holding up her embroidery_): See! It wants but three more roses and one swan.

_Jaime Rodriguez_ (_with another glance in the direction of_ SISTER PILAR): And do you know of what the swan is the figure? In that, flying from man, it makes its dwelling in wild, solitary haunts, St. Gregory of Nazianus holds that it figures the anchorite, and truly....

_Sister Pilar_ (_suddenly looking up, and smiling a little_): But what of its love of the lyre and all secular songs, by which it is wont to be lured to its destruction from its most secret glens? I have read that this same failing has led some learned doctors to look upon it as a figure of the soul of man, drawn hither and thither by the love of vain things.

_Jaime Rodriguez_ (_up to now he has spoken in a mincing, self-conscious voice, but from this point on his voice is shrill and excited_): Yes, yes, but that can also be interpreted as the love of godly men for sermons and edification and grave seemly discourse on the beautitudes of eternal life, and the holy deeds of men and women long since departed....

_Sister Assumcion_: The love, in short, of such discourse as yours, father? (_She tries in vain to catch SISTER PILAR’S eye and wink at her._)

_Jaime Rodriguez_ (_pouting like a cross child_, sotto voce): Honey is not for the mouth of the ass.

_Sister Assumcion_: Well, when you joined us, we were in the midst of just such a discourse. ’Twas touching the sin of a religious, which Sister Pilar was likening to a stone of small dimensions, but so heavy that a mighty giant could not move it.

_Jaime Rodriguez_ (_turning eagerly to SISTER PILAR_): Where did you read that _exemplum_, daughter? I have not come upon it.

_Sister Pilar_: Sister Assumcion has drawn her own meaning from a little foolish tale. She must surely be fresh from pondering the Fathers that she is so quick to find spiritual significations. Is that volume lying by you (_pointing to “Amadis”_) one of the works of the Fathers, sister?

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

_The other nuns titter._

_Jaime Rodriguez_: Well, ’tis doubtless true that a little sin shows blacker on the soul of a religious than a great sin on a layman’s soul ... but when it comes to the weighing in the ghostly scales, a religious has very heavy things to throw into the balance—Aves and Paters, though made of nought but air, are heavy things. Then, there is the nourishment of Christ’s body every day, making our souls wax fat, and—and—(_impatiently_) oh, all the benefits of a religious weigh heavily. The religious, like a peasant, has a treasure hid ’neath his bed that will for ever keep the wolf from the door. (_Looks round to see if his conceit is appreciated._) In Bestiaries, the wolf, you know, is a figure of the devil.

_Enter from behind TROTACONVENTOS, carrying a pedlar’s pack.
Throughout the play she is dressed in scarlet._

_Trotaconventos_ (_in unctuous, mocking voice_): Six hens to one cock! I verily believe that was the sight that made Adam weary in Eden. Holy hens and reverend cock, I bid you good morrow. (_She catches SISTER ASSUMCION’S eye and gives a little nod._)

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

_First Nun_: For shame! You have sorely neglected San Miguel these last days. What news in the town?

_Third Nun_: I hear the Ponces gave a tournament and bull-fight to celebrate a daughter’s wedding, and that the bridegroom was gored by the bull and the leeches despair of his recovery—is’t true?

_Second Nun_: What is the latest Moorish song?

_First Nun_: Have you been of late to the Alcazar? You promised to note for me if Doña Maria wore her gown cut square or in a peak?

_Trotaconventos_ (_covering her ears with her hands_): Good ladies, you’ll have me deaf. And do you not think shame to ask about such worldly matters before your confessor, there ... and before Sister Pilar? (_turning to SISTER PILAR_). Well, lady, and have the wings sprouted yet? But bear in mind the proverb that says, the ant grew wings to its hurt; and why? Because it took to flying and fell a prey to the birds.

_The nuns exchange glances and giggle. SISTER PILAR looks at
her with cold disgust._

_Sister Pilar_: Truly, you are as well stocked with proverbs and fables as our sister Assumcion. _You_, doubtless, collect them at fairs and peasants’ weddings, but ... (_she breaks off suddenly, bites her lip, colours, and takes up her book_).

_Trotaconventos_: Ah, well, wisdom can walk in a homespun jerkin as well as in the purple of King Solomon, eh, Don priest? And as to Sister Assumcion, what if her speech be freckled with a few wholesome, sun-ripened proverbs? They will not show on her pretty face when the nuns of Seville meet the nuns of Toledo in the contest of beauty, eh, my pretty? (_SISTER ASSUMCION laughs and tosses her head._) But the reverend chaplain is looking sourly! It is rare for Trotaconventos to meet with sour looks from the cloth. Why, there is not a canon’s house in _los Abades_ that does not sweetly stink of my perfumes: storax, benjamin, gum, amber, civet, musk, mosqueta. For do they not say that holiness and sweet odours are the same? It was Don Miguel de Caceres—that stout, well-liking canon, God rest his soul, who lived in the house the choir-master has now—and I used to keep his old shaven face as soft for him as a ripe fig, and I saw to it that he could drink his pig-skin a day without souring his breath; well, he used to call me ‘the panther’ of Seville; for it seems the panther is as many-hued as the peacock, and the other beasts follow it to their destruction because of the sweet odours it exudes. And there were words from Holy Writ he would quote about me—_in odorcur_ or words to that effect. Nor were the other branches....

_Jaime Rodriguez_ (_who had been fidgeting with impatience at TROTACONVENTOS’S verbosity, as usual shrilly and excitedly_): Doubtless the words quoted by the late canon were, _in odore unguentorum tuorum curremus_—in the track of thy perfumes shall we run. They come in the Song of Songs, the holy _redondilla_ wherewith Christ Jesus serenades Holy Church, and truly....

_Trotaconventos_ (_calmly ironical_): Truly, Don Jaime, you are a learned clerk. But as I was saying, it is not only for my perfumes that they seek me in _los Abades_. Don Canon is wont to have a large paunch, and Trotaconventos was not always as stout as she is now ... there were doors through which I could glide, while Don Canon’s bulk, for all his puffing and squeezing, must stand outside in the street. So in would go Trotaconventos, as easily as though it were your convent, ladies, her wallet stuffed with _redondillas_ and _coplas_, and all the other learned ballads wherein clerks are wont to rhyme their sighs and tears and winks and leers, and thrown in with these were toys of my own devising—tiring-pins of silver-gilt, barred belts, slashed shoes, kirtles laced with silk, lotions against freckles and warts and women’s colics....

_The nuns, except SISTER PILAR, who is apparently absorbed in
her reading, are drinking in every word with evident amusement
and delight, JAIME RODRIGUEZ grows every moment more impatient
and bored._

_Jaime Rodriguez_: Er—er—the Roman dame, Cleopatra, the leman of Mark Antony, was also learned in such matters; she wrote a book on freckles and their cure and....

_Trotaconventos_: I do not doubt it, Don Jaime. Well, in would go Trotaconventos, and round her would flock the pretty little uncoiffed maids, like the doves in the Cathedral garden when one has crumbs in one’s wallet. And I would feed them with marzipan and deck them out with my trinkets, and then they would sigh and say it was poor cheer going always with eyes cast on the ground and dressed as soberly as a nun (_she winks at the Nuns_) when they had chest upon chest packed as close as pears in a basket with scarlet clothes from Bruges and Malines, and gowns of Segovian cloth and Persian samite, and bandequins from Bagdad, all stiff with gold and pearls and broidered stories, rich as the shroud of St. Ferdinand or the banners of the King of Granada, lying there to fatten the moths till their parents should get them a husband. And I would say, ‘Well, when the dog put on velvet breeches he was as good as his master. There’s none to see but old Trotaconventos, and _she_ won’t blab. I’d like to see how this becomes you, and this ... and this.’ And I would have them decked out as gay and fine as a fairy, and they strutting before the mirror and laughing and blushing and taking heart of grace. Then my hand would go up their petticoats, and they would scream, ‘Ai! ai! Trotaconventos, you are tickling me!’ and laugh like a child of seven. And I would say, ‘Ah, my sweeting, there is one could tickle you better than me.’ And so I would begin Don Canon’s suit. Ay, and I would keep him posted in her doings, telling him at what procession she would be at, or in what church she would hear ‘cock’s mass.’ Or, if it was to a pretty widow his fancy roved, it was I that could tell him which days she was due at the church-yard to pray at her husband’s grave ... aye, as the proverb says, when the broom sprouts the ass is born to eat it.

_Sister Assumcion_ (_with a malicious glance at JAIME RODRIGUEZ_): But another proverb says: Honey is not for the mouth of the ass.

_Trotaconventos_ (_with a wink_): And yet another says: Honey lies hid in rocks; and it was not only to the houses of lords and merchants that I went on Don Canon’s business. How did I win my name of Trotaconventos? It was not given me by my gossips at the font. I was not taught in my catechism that on the seventh day God created man and woman, and on the eighth day He created monks and nuns ... were you so taught, Sister Pilar?

_JAIME RODRIGUEZ, with a petulant sigh, gets up and goes and
examines the arabesques on one of the walls._

_Sister Pilar_ (_looking up from her book, her eye sparkling and her cheek flushing_): As to that ... I have seen a painted Bible wherein the Serpent of Eden is depicted with a wicked old woman’s face.

_JAIME RODRIGUEZ turns round with a shrill cackle._

_Trotaconventos_ (_chuckling_): A good, honest blow, Sister Pilar! But as the proverb says, the abbot dines off his singing, and of its own accord the pot does not fill itself with stew. Howbeit, Sister Pilar, who laughs last laughs on the right side of his mouth. Well, ladies, shall we to the parlour? A ship from Tunis has lately come in, and one from Alexandria, and one from Genoa, and they tell me I was born under Liber with the moon in the ascendant, and that draws me ever to the water’s edge, and sailors have merry kind hearts and bring me toys, and, it may be, there will be that among them that will take your fancy.

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

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

_All except SISTER PILAR and JAIME RODRIGUEZ walk towards the
convent. SISTER PILAR goes on reading. JAIME RODRIGUEZ comes up
to her and timidly sits down beside her. Silence._

_Jaime Rodriguez_ (_in a constrained voice_): I am to read mass to the pilgrims before they start for Guadalupe.

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

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

_Sister Pilar_ (_smiling a little sadly_): Because I want to keep my own dream of a pilgrimage—nothing but mountains and rivers and seas and visions and hymns to Our Lady.

_Jaime Rodriguez_: I fear there are other things as well: fleas and dust, and tumblers and singers, and unseemly talk.

_Sister Pilar_: Hence I’d liefer go on pilgrimage by the road of my own dreams. (_Passionately_) Oh, these other things, small and pullulating and fertile, and all of them the spawn of sin! One cannot be rid of them. Why, even in the Books of Hours, round the grave Latin psalms the monks must needs draw garlands and butterflies and hawks and hounds; and we nuns powder our handiwork—the copes and vestments for the mass—not with such meet signs as crosses and emmies, but with swans and true-love knots and birds and butterflies ... (_she breaks off, half laughing_). I would have things plain and grave.

_Jaime Rodriguez_ (_impatiently_): Yes, yes, but you are forgetting that Nature is the mirror in which is reflected the thoughts of God; hence, to the discerning eye, there is nothing mean and trivial, but everything, everything, is a page in the great book of the Passion and the Redemption. For him who has learned to read that book, the Martyrs bleed in roses and in amethysts, the Confessors keep their council in violets, and in lilies the Virgins are spotless—not a spray of eglantine, not a little ant, but is a character in the book of Nature. Why, without first reading it, the holy fathers could not crack a little nut; it is the figure of Christ, said Adam of Saint-Victor—its green husk is His humanity, its shell the wood of the Cross, its kernel the heavenly nourishment of the Host. Nay, daughter, I tell you....

_Sister Pilar_: Yes, yes, but do you verily believe the nun with her needle, the clerk with his brush, wots anything of these hidden matters? Nay, it is nought but vanity. Oh! these multitudinous seeds of vanity that lie broadcast in every soul, in every mote of sunshine, in every acre of the earth! There is no soul built of a substance so closely knit but that it has crannies wherein these seeds find lodging; and, ere you can say a pater, lo! they are bourgeoning! ’Tis like some church that stands four-square to the winds and sun so long as folk flock there to pray; then comes a rumour that the Moors are near, and the folks leave their homes and fly; and then, some day, they may return, and they will find the stout walls of their church all starred with jessamine, intagliated with ivy, that eat and eat until it crumbles to the ground. So many _little_ things ... everywhere! And our thoughts ... say it be the Passion of Our Lord we choose for contemplation; at first, all is well, the tears flow, ’tis almost as if we smelled the sweat and dust of the road to Calvary ... and then, after a little space, we stare around bewildered, and know that our minds have broken into scores of little bright thoughts, like the margins of the Hours, and then ...

_Jaime Rodriguez_: Yes, daughter, but I tell you you should obtain the key to the Creation; read St. Ambrose’s _Hexæmeron_, and thus school your mind by figures for the naked types of Heaven; there every house will be a church, its hearth an altar on which, no longer hid under the species of bread and wine, Jesus Christ will be for ever enthroned. And its roof will be supported not by pillars carved into the semblance of the Patriarchs and Apostles, but by the Patriarchs ... oh, yes, and the housewife’s store of linen will all be corporals, and her plate ... you are smiling!

_Sister Pilar_: How happy you must have been playing with your toys when you were a child! I can see you with an old wine-keg for an altar, a Moor’s skull for a chalice, and a mule’s discarded shoe for a pyx, chanting meaningless words, and rating the other children if their wits wandered ... but ... you are angry?

_Jaime Rodriguez_ (_rising in high dudgeon_): Aye, ever mocking! Methinks ... I cannot call to mind ever reading that holy women of old mocked their confessors.

_He walks across the court to the door at the side. SISTER
PILAR sits on for some minutes in a reverie, then rises, and
goes and tends the plants round the fountain, so that she is
not visible to any one entering the court from the convent.
Enter from the convent TROTACONVENTOS and SISTER ASSUMCION._

_Trotaconventos_: As to hell-fire, my dear, you’ll meet with many a procuress and bawd in Paradise, for we have a mighty advocate in St. Mary Magdalene, who was of our craft. And as to the holy life, why, when your hams begin to wither and your breasts to sag, then cast up your eyes and draw as long an upper lip as a prioress at a bishop’s visitation. A sinful youth and a holy old age—thus do we both enjoy the earth and win to Paradise hereafter. Well, my sweeting, all is in train—I’d eat some honey, it softens the voice; and repeat the _in Temerate_ and the _De Profundis_, for old wives say they are wonderful lucky prayers in all such business, and ... well, I think that is all. Be down at the orchard wall at nine o’clock to-night, and trust the rest to what the Moors call the ‘great procuress’—Night.

_Exit TROTACONVENTOS. SISTER PILAR appears from behind the
fountain. She and SISTER ASSUMCION stare at each other in
silence for a few seconds, SISTER PILAR coldly, SISTER
ASSUMCION defiantly._

SCENE II

_Scene the same. Time: Afternoon of the same day. SISTER
PILAR is hearing JUANITO’S and PEPITA’S lessons._

_Pepita_: Says St. John the Evangelist:

In Jesus Christ I do believe,
In guise of bread we Him perceive,
The Father’s side he ne’er does leave Son Eternal.

_Juanito_: Says St. Philip:

Down into Hell he did descend
The gates of which....

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

_Pepita_: I remember; let _me_ say.

Says St. James:
The Holy Ghost did Him conceive——

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

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

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

Beware of Lust—King David once....

_Sister Pilar_: Juanito, dear, you must not look upon this exercise as a game. It is the doctrine of Holy Mother Church. It is your pilgrim’s staff and not a light matter. Let us begin again.

_Juanita_: Oh, I am so weary! The sun’s so hot. My head seems as if to-day it could not hold Creeds and such matters. Prithee, Sister Pilar, will you not read to us?

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

_Sister Pilar_: Oh, children, you have been at your tasks scarce quarter of an hour.

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

_Sister Pilar_: I fear I am a fond and foolish master. Well, so be it. (_She opens a large folio._) Let me see....

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

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

_Sister Pilar_: This is the place. “Now one of the keys was of so pure a silver that it seemed to be white, and in places it was gilded, and it was of a very notable and exquisite workmanship. In length it was the third of a cubit. Its stem was hollow and delicately turned, and it ended in a ball inlaid with divers metals. Round its guards in curious characters was engraved: God will open, the King will enter. The circle of its ring contained an engraved plaque like to a medal, embossed with flowers and leaves. And in the centre of the hole was a little plaque threaded with a delicately twisted cord, and the ring was joined to the stem by a cube of gold on the four sides of which were embossed alternately lions and castles. And on the edge of its bulk, between delicately inlaid arabesques, there was written, in Hebrew words and Hebrew characters, the same motto as that on the guards, which is in Latin—‘Rex Regium aperiet: Rex universæ terræ introibit’—the King of Kings will open, the King of all the earth will enter. Some say the key and the whole incident is a symbol of the Host being lain in the custodia.”

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

_Sister Pilar_: I sadly fear, Juanito, that ’tis only to saints that such keys are given. Think you, you’ll be a saint some day?

_Juanito_: Not I! They live on lentils and dried peas. I’ll be a tumbler at the fairs. Already I can stand on my head ... (_catching Pepita’s eye_) nearly.

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

_Juanito_ (_crestfallen and anxious to change the subject_): Could St. Ferdinand stand on his head?

_Pepita_ (_much shocked_): For shame, Juanito! Sister Pilar has told us he was a great saint!

_Juanito_: How great a one?

_Sister Pilar_: A very great one.

_Juanito_: What did he do?

_Sister Pilar_: Well, he had a great devotion for Our Lady and the Eucharist. He founded many convents and monasteries....

_Pepita_: Did he found ours?

_Sister Pilar_: It was founded during his reign.

_Pepita_: How long ago did he live?

_Sister Pilar_: More than a hundred years ... when your great-great-grandfather was living.

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

_Juanito_: How many? A hundred?

_Sister Pilar_: More.

_Juanito_: A thousand?

_Sister Pilar_: Maybe.

_Juanito_: A million?

_Sister Pilar_: Nay, not quite a million.

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

_Sister Pilar_: Ah! no.

_Juanito_: Why?

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

_Juanito_: Do all nuns go to Paradise?

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

_Juanito_: Will you go?

_Sister Pilar_: I hope so.

_Juanito_: Will Sister Assumcion go?

_Sister Pilar_: I hope so.

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

_Juanito_: All those nuns, and when they die new ones coming! Why, it’s like Don Juan Tenorio springing up again in our game!

_Pepita_ (_extremely shocked_): Oh, Juanito!

_Juanito_: Well, and so it is! And old Domingo says that his ghost tries o’ nights to steal the live nuns, but the dead ones beat him back.

_Pepita_: Yes, and it’s Don Juan that makes the flowers and the corn grow, and that’s what the game is that Domingo taught us.

_Juanito_: Let me sing it!

_Pepita_: No, me!

_Sister Pilar_: Children! Children! This is all foolish and evil talk. It is God, as you know well, that makes the corn grow. You should not listen to old Domingo.

_Juanito_: Oh, but he tells us fine tales of Roland and Belermo and the Moorish king that rode on a zebra.... I like them better than the lives of the Saints. Come, Pepita, let’s go and play.

_They pick up their balls and run off and begin tossing them
against one of the walls of the court._

_Sister Pilar_ (_musing_): They too ... they too ... pretty flowers and butterflies upon the margin of the hours that catch one’s eye and fancy.... Pretty brats of darkness ... and yet Juanito is only five and is floating still, a little Moses, on the waters of Baptism. Soft wax ... but where is the impress of the seal of the King of Kings? He is a pigmy sinner, and albeit the vanities pursued by him are tiny things—balls and sweetmeats and pagan stories—still are they vanities, and with his growth will they grow. Jesus! My nightmare vision! Sin, sin, sin everywhere! Babes turn hideous. Dead birds caught by the fowler and turned into his deadliest snares. The fiends of hell shrink to their stature and ape their innocence and serious eyes; and how many virgins that the love of no man could have lured, have, through longing for children, been caught in concupiscence? Oh, sin and works of darkness, I am so weary of you!

_Beyond the wall a jovial male voice is heard singing_:

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

Le rossignol y chante,
Et le jour et la nuit,
Il chante pour les filles
Qui n’ont pas d’ami.
Il ne chante pas pour moi
J’en ai un, Dieu merci,
Serai-je nonnette, oui ou non?
Serai-je nonnette, je crois que non!

_Enter DENNYS, disguised as a mendicant friar._

_Dennys_: Christ, and His Mother, and all the Saints be with you, daughter. Whew! Your porter’s a lusty-sinewed rogue, and he was loath to let me enter, saying that he and the maid he’s courting were locked up in a church by one of my order and not let out till he had paid toll of all that he had in his purse (_throws back his head and laughs_), and I asked him if the maid lost something too, but....

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

_Dennys_: My pleasure? Need you ask that of a mendicant friar? Why, my pleasure is the grease of St. John of the golden beard, the good sweat of gold coins—that is my pleasure. “Nothing for myself, yet drop it into the sack,” as your proverb has it. And, in truth, ’tis by the sweat of our brow that we, too, live; oh, we are most learned and diligent advocates, and, though we may skin our clients’ purses, down to robbing them of their mule and stripping them of their cloak, yet we are tireless in their cause, appealing from court to court till we reach the Supreme Judge and move Him to set free our poor clients, moaning in the dungeons of Purgatory. There is no cause too feeble for my pleading; by my prayers a hundred stepmothers, fifty money-lenders, eighty monks, and twenty-five apostate nuns have won to Paradise; so, daughter if you will but ... (_catches sight of PEPITA and JUANITO who have stolen up, and are listening to him open-mouthed_) Godmorrow, lord and lady! I wonder ... has this poor friar any toy or sugar-plum to please little lords and ladies? (_PEPITA and JUANITO exchange shy, excited looks, laugh and hang their heads._) Now, my hidalgo, tell me would you liefer have a couple of ripe figs or two hundred years off Purgatory? (_He winks at SISTER PILAR, who has been staring at him with a cold surprise._)

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

_Dennys_ (_with a loud laugh_): Well answered, Doña Doubting Thomas (_turning to SISTER PILAR_). You Spaniards pass at once for the most doubting and the most credulous of the nations. You believe every word of your priest and doubt every word of your neighbour. Why, I remember ... may I sit down, daughter?... I remember once at Avila....

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

_Dennys_: No, nor I have! As your poor folk say, “One ‘take’ is worth a score of ‘I’ll gives.’” Give me your balls. (_He makes cabalistic signs over them._) There now, they are figs, and brebas at that! What, you don’t believe me? (_noticing their disappointed faces._) It must be at the next meeting, little lord and lady. Half a dozen for each of you, my word as a tr—— as a friar. But you must not let me keep you from your business ... I think you have business with a ball, over at that wall yonder?

_Pepita and Juanito_: Come and play with us.

_Dennys_: No, no, it would not suit my frock. Another day, maybe. Listen, get you to your game of ball, but watch for the Moor who may come swooping down on you like this (_He catches them up in his arms, they laughing and struggling_): fling them over his shoulders as it were a bag of chestnuts. Then hie for the ovens of Granada! (_He trots them back to the wall, one perched on either shoulder._) Now, my beauties, you busy yourselves with your ball and expect the Moor. But mind! He’ll not come if you call out to him. (_He returns to the bewildered SISTER PILAR._) I think that will keep them quiet and occupied a little space. Well, I suppose your sisters are having their _siesta_ and dreaming of ... I’ll sit here a little space if I may, your court is cool and pleasant.

(_Pause._)

_Dennys_ (_looking at her quizzically_): So all day long you sit and dream and sing the Hours.

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

_Dennys_: And so my tongue has betrayed my birth? Well, it is the Judas of our members. But I am not ashamed of coming from beyond the Pyrenees. And as to the life of a religious in France—what with these roving knaves that call themselves “companions” and make war on every man, and every woman, too, and the ungracious Jacquerie that roast good knights in the sight of their lady wife and children, and sack nunneries and rape the nuns, why the Hours are apt to be sung to an un-gregorian tune. And then the followers of the Regent slaying the followers of the Provost of Paris in the streets....

_Sister Pilar_: Oh, the hate of kings and dukes and desperate wicked men! Were such as they but chained, there might be room for peace and contemplation.

_Dennys_: The hate of kings and dukes and desperate wicked men! But, daughter, the next best thing to love is hate. ’Tis the love and hate of dead kings and lovely dead Infantas has filled the garden-closes with lilies and roses, and set men dipping cloths in crimson dye, and broidering them in gold, and breaking spears in jousts and tourneys ... that love and hate that never dies, but is embalmed in songs and ballads, and....

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

_Dennys_: It has no need of my pleading, lady. Why, I know most of the cots and castles between here and the good town of Paris. I have caught great, proud ladies at rere-supper in their closets, drinking and jesting and playing on the lute with clerks and valets, and one of them with his hand beneath her breast, while her lord snored an echo to the hunter’s horn that rang through the woods of his dreams; and in roadside inns I have met little, laughing nuns, who....

_Sister Pilar_ (_rising_): You speak exceeding strangely for a friar, nor is it meet I should hear you out.

_Dennys_: Nay, daughter, pardon my wild tongue; the tongue plays ever ape to the ear, and if the ear is wont to hear more ribald jests than paters, why then the tongue betrays its company ... nay, daughter, before you go, resolve me this: _what is sin?_ To my thinking ’tis the twin-sister of virtue, and none but their foster-mother knows one from t’other. Are horses and tourneys and battles sin? Your own St. James rides a great white charger and leads your chivalry against the Moors. (_With a sly wink_) I have met many an hidalgo who has seen him do it! And we are told there was once an angelic war in Heaven, and I ween the lists are ever set before God’s throne, and the twelve Champions, each with an azure scarf, break lances for a smile from Our Lady. And as to rich, strange cloths and jewels, the raiment of your painted wooden Seville virgins would make the Queen of France herself look like a beggar maid. And is love sin? The priests affirm that God is love. Tell me then, daughter, what is the birth-mark of the twin-sister sin that we may know and shun her?

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

_Dennys_: Death? (_half to himself_). Yes, I have seen it at its work ... that flaunting, wanton page at Valladolid, taunting the old Jew doctor because ere long all his knowledge of herbs and precious stones would not keep him sweet from the worm, and ere the week was done the pretty page himself cold and blue and stiff, and all the ladies weeping. And the burgher’s young wife at Arras, a baby at each breast, and her good man, his merry blue eyes twinkling, crying, “Oh, my wife is a provident woman, Dennys, and has laid up two pairs of eyes and four hands and four strong legs and two warm hearts against her old age and mine” ... then how he laughed! And ere the babies had cut their first tooth it was violets and wind-flowers she was nourishing.... Ay, Death ... when I was a child I mind me, and still sometimes, as I grow drowsy in my bed, my fancies that have been hived all day begin to swarm—buzzing, stinging, here, there, everywhere ... then they take shape, and start marching soberly two and two, bishops and monks, and yellow-haired squires, and little pert clerks, and oh, so many lovely ladies—those ladies that we spoke of, who being dead have yet a thousand lives in the dreams of folk alive—Dame Venus, Dame Helena, the slave-girl Briseis, Queen Iseult, Queen Guinevere, the Infanta Polyzene; and, although they weep sorely and beat with their hands, a herald Moor shepherds them to the dance of the grisly King, who, having danced a round with each of them, hurls them down into a black pit ... down which I, too, shortly fall ... to come up at the other side, like figures on Flemish water-clocks, at the birds matins.

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

_Dennys_ (_shaking his finger at her_): For shame, daughter, for the avowal! It tells of rere-suppers of lentils and _manjar-blanca_ in the dorter, or, at least, of faring too fatly in the frater ... what if I blab on you to the Archbishop? Well, this is a piteous grave discourse! I had meant to talk to you of Life, and lo! I have talked of Death.

_PEPITA and JUANITO come running up._

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

_Dennys_ (_gazing at them in bewilderment_): The Moor? What Moor ... Don Death’s trumpeter? Why, to be sure! Beshrew me for a wool-gatherer! It was this way: as he was riding forth from the gate of Elvira he was stricken down with colic by Mahound, because in an _olla_ made him by his Christian slave he had unwittingly eaten of the flesh of swine.

_The children shriek with laughter._

_Juanito_: Oh, you are such a funny man! Isn’t he, Sister Pilar? But you must come and play with us now.

_Dennys_: Well, what is the sport to be?

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

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

_Juanito_: We’ll play it three. When we reach the word “grave” we all fall down flop. Come!

_They take hands and dance round, singing_:

Bells of Sevilla, Carmona, and all
Toll, toll, as we carry the pall
(Weep, doñas, weep.)
For Don Juan the fairy
(Chant _miserere_.)
The lovely and brave
Is cold in his grave.

_They fall down._

_Juanito_: But we have none to sing the last _copla_ for us that we may spring up again. _Dear_ Sister Pilar, couldn’t you _once_?

_She smilingly shakes her head._

_Dennys_: Come, daughter, be merciful.

_Her expression hardens and she again shakes her head. In the
meantime, SISTER ASSUMCION has come up unobserved, and suddenly
in a clear, ringing voice, she begins to sing_:

Into the earth, priest, lower the bier,
The glory of Seville is withered and sere
(Weep, doñas, weep.)
But Don Juan Tenorio
(Carol the _gloria_.)
With a caper so brave
Leaps up from the grave.

_They all jump up laughing. DENNYS stares at SISTER ASSUMCION
with a bold and, at the same time, dazzled admiration. The
sun seems suddenly to shine more brightly upon them and the
children. SISTER PILAR is in the shadow._

SCENE III

_Nine o’clock in the evening of the same day. The convent’s
orange orchard. From the chapel is wafted the voices of the
nuns singing Compline. A horse whinnies from the other side of
the orchard wall._

_Don Manuel de Lara_ (_who all through this scene is at the other side of the wall and hence invisible_): Whist! Muza! Whist, my beauty! (_sings_):

Ave Maria gloriosa
Virgen Santa, preciosa,
Cómo eres piadosa
Todavía!

_SISTER ASSUMCION enters as he sings and walks hurriedly
towards the wall._

SISTER ASSUMCION (_sings_):

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

_Don Manuel de Lara_ (_quickly and tonelessly, as if repeating a lesson_): Oh, disembodied voice! Like the cuckoo’s, you tell of enamelled meads watered by fertile streams and of a myriad small hidden beauties that in woods and mountains the spring keeps sheltered from men’s eyes.

_Sister Assumcion_ (_laughing softly_): Sir knight, howbeit I have never till this moment heard your voice, yet I can tell ’tis not an instrument tuned to these words.

_Don Manuel de Lara_: A pox on _trovares_ and clerks, and the French Courts of Love.... I’ll trust to the union of the moon and my own hot blood to find me words!

_Sister Assumcion_ (_mockingly_): The moon’s a cold dead mare, is your blood a lusty enough stallion to beget ought on _her_?

_Don Manuel de Lara_ (_with an impatient exclamation_): I’ve not come to weave fantastic talk like serenading Moors. All I would say can be said in the Old Christians’ Castilian.

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

(_Pause._)

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

_Sister Assumcion_: So it would seem.

(_Pause._)

_Don Manuel de Lara_ (_as if having come to a sudden resolution_): Listen, lady. I am no carpet knight, dubbed with a jester’s bladder at a rere-supper of infantas. I won my spurs when I was fourteen at the Battle of Salado. Since then I have been in sieges and skirmishes and night-alarms, enough to dint ten coats of mail. And because there is great merit in fighting the Moors, I have permitted myself to sin lustily. I have even lain with the daughters of Moors and Jews, for which I went on foot to Compostella and did sore penance, for it is a heavy sin, and the one that brought in days gone by the flood upon the earth. But never have I sinned with the wife or daughter or kinswoman of my over-lord, or with one of the brides of Christ. I am from Old Castille, and I cannot forget my immortal soul. But I verily believe that old witch Trotaconventos has laid a spell upon me; for she has so inflamed my blood with her talk of your eyes, your lashes, your small white teeth, your scarlet lips and gums, your breasts, your flanks, your ankles ... oh, I know well the tune to which old bawds trumpet their wares; and man is so fashioned as to be swayed by certain words that act on him like charms—such as “breasts,” “hips,” “lips”—and must as surely burn at the naming of them as a hound must prick his ears and bay at the sound of a distant horn, but it is but with a small, wavering flame, soon quenched, with a “no, no, gutter-crone, none of your scurvy, worm-eaten goods for me!” But when the old witch talked of you, ’twas with the honeyed tongue of Pandar himself, the same that stole from the good Knight, Troilus, all manliness and pride of arms. And she has strangely stirred my dreams ... they are ever of scaling towers and mining walls; but, although dreaming, I know well the towers are not of stone, nor the mines dug in earth ... lady ... I think I am sick ... I——

_Sister Assumcion_ (_frightened_): What ails the man? ... but ... Trotaconventos ... I had not thought ... ’tis all so strange....

_Don Manuel de Lara_ (_solemnly_): Why did you come to the postern to-night, Sister Assumcion?

_Sister Assumcion_ (_angrily_): Why did I come? A pretty question! I came because of the exceeding importunities of Trotaconventos, who said you lay sick for love of me.

_Don Manuel de Lara_ (_low, sternly_): You are the bride of Christ. Is your profession a light thing?

_Sister Assumcion_ (_shrilly_): Profession? Much wish I had to be professed! I do not know who my mother was nor who my father. I was reared by the priest of a little village near the Moorish frontier. He was good-natured enough so long as the parishioners were regular with their capons and sucking-pigs laid on the altar for the souls of the dead, but all he cared for was sport with his greyhound and ferret, and they said he hadn’t enough Latin to say the _Consecration_ aright, and that the souls of his parishioners were in dire peril through his tongue tripping and stumbling over the office of Baptism, so ’twas little respect for religion that I learned in his house. And so little did I dream of being professed a nun that though the fear of the Moors lay black over the village, and the other maids could not go to fill their pitchers at the well or take the goatherds their midday bread and garlic without their hearts trembling like a bird, yet as to me I never tired of hearing the tale of the Infanta Proserpine, who, as she was weaving garlands in her father’s garden, was stolen by the Moorish king, Pluton; and I would pray, yes, pray at the shrine of Our Lady on the hill to lull my guardian-angel asleep and sheath his sword, and on that very day to send a fine Moorish knight in a crimson _marlota_ and armour glittering in the sun, clattering down the bridle-path to carry me off to Granada, where, if it had meant a life of ease and pleasure, I would gladly have bowed down before the gold and marble Mahound.

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

_Sister Assumcion_ (_bitterly_): Through no choice of my own. When I was twelve, the priest said he had law business in Seville, and asked me if I’d like to go with him. If I’d like to go with him! It was my dream to see Seville, and I had made in my fancy a silly, simple picture—a town which was always a great fair, stall upon stall of bright, glittering merchandise, and laughter and merriment, and tumblers and dancers, threaded with a blue river upon which ships with silken sails and figureheads of heathen gods, laden with lords and ladies, and painted birds that talked, were ever sailing up and down, and all small and very brightly coloured, like the pictures in a merry lewd book of fables by an old Spanish _trovar_, Ovid, for which my priest cared more than for his breviary. And oh, the adventures that were to wait me there! Well, we set out, I riding behind him on his mule ... if I shut my eyes it all comes back as if it were but yesterday.... I jolted and sore and squeamish from my nearness to him, as his linen was as foul as were the corporals in his Church ... then the band of merchants and their varlets we travelled with for greater safety on the road.... It was bicker, bicker all the time between them and my priest ... each time we came to a bridge it was, “Nay, sir priest, we’ll not let you across for you and your cloth pay naught to their building and upkeep,” and then.... Oh, ’twas a tedious journey, and took the heart out of me. Well, we reached Seville towards dusk ... a close, frowning, dirty town, in truth, nought but a Morisco settlement such as we had at home—the houses all blank and grim like dead faces, and oh! the stink of dogs’ corpses! And not a soul to be seen for fear of the Guzmans and the Ponces.... And yet I’d catch the whiff of orange-flowers across the walls, and I heard a voice singing the ballad, _Count Arnaldo_, to the lute ... ’tis strange, these two things, whiffs of orange-flower at night and the _Count Arnaldo_ ... it has ever been the same with me, they turn the years to come to music and perfume ... or, rather, ’tis as if the years had come and gone, and already I was old and dreaming them back again. Well, albeit like a pious little maid, I had said a Pater and Ave for the parents of St. Julian that he might send me a good lodging, ’twas to the house of Trotaconventos the priest took me that night, and it seemed to me indeed an evil house and she a witch, and I never closed my eyes all night. Next morning she brought me here, and after that night, what with its cool dorter and frater, and its _patio_ and gardens, it seemed like the castle of Rocafrida—the fairy houses in ballads; and whether I would or not I became a novice ... a dowerless novice without clothes or furniture, and never a coin even to give the servants at Christmas ... and then ... what would you? Once a novice ’tis wellnigh impossible to ’scape the black veil (_her tone once more bantering_). And that’s the end of the story, and may the good things that come be for all the shire. Did the daughters of the Moors and Jews tell you such prosy tales?

(_Pause._)

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

_Sister Assumcion_ (_in a voice where archness tries to conceal embarrassment_): Why, you must be one of the monkish knights of Santiago! I feel like a penitent in the Confessional ... _mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa_, aha! aha!

_Don Manuel de Lara_ (_very solemnly_): I will know. Did that old witch in mandragora or henbane, or whatever be the hellish filters that hold the poison of love, pour _me_ hurtling and burning through your veins as you were poured through mine?

_Sister Assumcion_: Jesus!... I ... she did indeed please my fancy with the picture that she drew of you ... but come, sir knight! You forget I have not yet seen your face, much less....

_Don Manuel de Lara_ (_slowly_): So on a cold stomach, through caprice and a little _accidia_ you were ready to forfeit eternal bliss and ... I will not mince my words ... make Our Lord Jesus Christ a cuckold?

_Sister Assumcion_: Well, of all the strange talk! I vow, Sir Knight, it is as if you blamed me for coming to the tryst. Have you forgotten how for weeks you did importune that old witch with prayers and vows and tears and groans that she should at least contrive I should hold speech with you to give you a little ease of your great torment? And what’s more, ’tis full six weeks since you began plaguing me by proxy; at least, I have not failed in coyness.

_Don Manuel de Lara_: True, lady, I ask your pardon. Why should I blame you for my dreams? (_half to himself_) a phantom fire laying waste a land of ghosts and shadows ... then a little wind wafting the smell of earthly things ... wet flowers and woods ... its wings dropping wholesome rain and lo! the fantastic flames with dying hisses vanish in the smoke that kindled them.... Lips? Lashes? Haunches? I spoke foolishly; they are not enough. How can I tell my dreams? (_his voice grows wild_). Lips straining towards lips against the pulling back of all the hosts of Heaven ... a sin so grave as to be own sister to virtue ... oh! sweetness coming out of horror ... once my horse’s hoofs crushed a seven years’ old Moorish maid ... ooh!

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

_Sister Pilar_: Sister, I missed you at Compline.

_Sister Assumcion_: Indeed! And in the interval have you been made prioress or sub-prioress?

_Sister Pilar_: Sister Assumcion, this is not the time for idle taunts. I cannot say I love you, and in this I know I err, for no religious house can flourish except Sisters Charity, Meekness, and Peace are professed among its nuns. But I came for the honour of this house.... God knows its scutcheon is blotted enough ... have you forgotten Sister Isabel?... believe me I _must_ speak; it would go ill with me were I to see a sister take horse for hell and not catch hold of the bridle, nay, fling my body underneath the hoofs, if that could stop the progress.

_Sister Assumcion_: And what is all this tedious prose? Because, forsooth, feeling faint at Compline, I crept out to take the evening air.

_Sister Pilar_: You lie, sister. Think you I am deaf? As I drew near a man’s voice reached me from the other side of the wall. (_Raising her voice._) Most impious of all would-be adulterers, know that your banns will be forbidden by the myriad voices of the Church Militant, the Church Triumphant, _and_ the Church in Torment. For she (and all nuns do so), who through the watches of the night prays for the dead, raises up a ghostly bodyguard to fight for her virginity. Beware of the dead! They hedge this sister round.

_Sister Assumcion_ (_shrilly_): You canting, white-lipped, sneering witch! You whose breasts are no bigger than a maid of twelve! You ... you ... this talk comes ill from you ... do you think me blind? Oh, Sister Vanity, what of your veil drawn down so modestly to your eyes in frater or in chapter, but when there are lay visitors in the parlour, or even Don Jaime gossiping in the _patio_, have I not seen that same veil creep up and up, till it reveals the broad, white brow? Oh, and the smile hoarded like a miser’s gold that when at last it is disclosed all may the more marvel at the treasure of small, white teeth! Oh, swan who loves solitude but who, of all birds, is the most swayed by the music of ... mendicant friars!

_Sister Pilar_: Silence!

_Sister Assumcion_: Aha! That shaft went home! What of the Deadly Sins grimacing behind the masks of the virtues? Why do you hate me so? Well, I will tell you. ’Tis the work of our old friend of the Catechism—Envy, the jaundiced, sour-breathed Don. Remember, Sister Pilar: Thou shalt not envy thy sister’s flanks, nor her merry tongue, nor her red lips, nor any of her body’s members. Over my shoulder to-day, I saw the look with which you followed the friar and me.

_Sister Pilar_ (_in a voice choked with passion_): Silence! you peasant’s bastard! You who have crept into a house of high born ladies and made it stink with as rank a smell as though a goat had laid down among Don Pedro’s Arab mares. Poor mummer! From a little, red-cheeked, round-eyed peasant girl, I have seen you moulding yourself to the pattern of our high-born visitors—from one the shrill laugh, from another the eyes blackened with kohl, from a third the speech flowery from _Amadis_ and other profane books—but all the civet and musk your fancy pours on your image of yourself cannot drown the peasant’s garlic. You flatter yourself, Sister Assumcion; _I_, a Guzman, whose mother was a Perez, and grandame a Padilla, how could I for a second envy _you_?

_Sister Assumcion_ (_laughing_): But peasant’s blood can show red in the lips and gums, and a bastard’s breasts can be as full and firm, her limbs as long and slender as those of a Guzman or a Padilla. Your rage betrays you, Sister Pilar. I bid you good-night.

_Exit._ (_Pause._)

_Sister Pilar_: My God! Envy! It has a sour smell. And rage and pride—two other deadly sins whose smell is ranker than that of any peasant. (_Shrilly_) Sloth! Avarice! Gluttony! Lust! Why do you linger? Your brothers wait for you to begin the feast.

_Sinks on her knees._

Oh, heavenly advocate! Sweet Virgin of compassion, by your seven joys and seven sorrows I beseech you to intercede for me. I have sinned, I have sinned, my soul has become loathsome to me. Oh, Blessed Virgin, a boon, a boon! That either by day or in the watches of the night, though it be but for a second of time I may behold the woof of things without the warp of sin ... a still, quiet, awful world, and all the winds asleep.

_From beyond the wall comes a small whinny, then the jingle of
spurs and the sound of departing hoofs. SISTER PILAR starts
violently._