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._