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._