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🟡 Cradle Song (Full Audiobook) | Gregorio Martnez Sierra · Classic Science Fiction Audiobooks: Free Public Domain Sci-Fi Stories

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Act one of the Cradle Song by Gregorio Martinez Sierra,
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: translated by John Garrett Underhill. This is a LibriVox recording.
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org.
• 0:21
  Speaker 2: Characters Sister Joanna of the Cross eighteen years of age
• 0:28
  Speaker 2: read by Animas.
• 0:31
  Speaker 3: Teresa aged eighteen read by Michelle.
• 0:37
  Speaker 4: The Prioress aged forty, read by Adrian Stephens.
• 0:42
  Speaker 5: The Vicarous, aged forty read by Sonya.
• 0:46
  Speaker 6: The Mistress of Novices aged thirty six read by Tiffany Cadenhead.
• 0:53
  Speaker 7: Sister Marcella, aged nineteen, read by Jen Broda.
• 1:00
  Speaker 8: Maria Jesus aged nineteen read by Matter.
• 1:04
  Speaker 9: Sister Sagrario, age eighteen read by A B. Sweet thirteen.
• 1:11
  Speaker 10: Sister Ynez age fifty read by Melinda Vogel.
• 1:18
  Speaker 11: Sister Tournera aged thirty read by Thomas Peter.
• 1:24
  Speaker 12: The Doctor, age sixty read by Todd.
• 1:29
  Speaker 13: Antonio, aged twenty five read by Greta Buy.
• 1:36
  Speaker 14: The Poets read Boylam Mapstone.
• 1:40
  Speaker 15: A Countryman read by David Purdy.
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: Stage Directions read by Larry Wilson. Act one a room
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: opening upon the cloister of a convent of enclosed Dominican nuns.
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: The walls are tinted soberly the florist three arches at
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: the rear. In the right wall, a large door with
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: a wicket in it, leading to a passage communicating with
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: the exterior. A grilled peepole for looking out above the door,
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: a bell which may be rung from the street. Beside
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: the door, an opening containing a revolving box or a
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: wheel in which objects may be placed and passed in
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: from the outside without the recipients being seen, or a
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: view of the interior disclosed. Not far from this wheel,
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: a pine table stands against one of the piers of
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: the cloister. Ancient paintings relieve the walls. Through the arches,
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: the cloister garden may be seen, with a well in
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: the middle, also a number of fruit trees, some greenery,
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: and a few rose bushes. Beneath the arches potted flowers, roses, carnations,
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: sweet basal, herb luisa and balsam apple, together with a
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: number of wooden benches and rush seated chairs and three armchairs.
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: As the curtain rises, the prioress is discovered seated in
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: the largest of the armchairs, and the Mistress of Novices
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: and the Vicarus in the smaller ones, the former on
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: the right, the latter on the left, well to the front.
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: The other nuns are grouped about them, seated also the Novices,
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: Sister Marcella, Sister Joanna of the Cross, Sister Maria Jesus,
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: and Sister Sargarrio stands somewhat to the right, Sister Joanna
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: of the Cross occupying the center of the stage. The
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: lay sister and Sister Tonera remains standing by the table
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: at the rear. It is broad daylight. The scene is
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: one of cheerfulness and animation.
• 3:45
  Speaker 9: Yes do do do better read them?
• 3:49
  Speaker 7: Yes do, mother do say.
• 3:51
  Speaker 4: Yes, very well you might read them, since you have
• 3:55
  Speaker 4: written them.
• 3:56
  Speaker 5: I am very much ashamed.
• 3:58
  Speaker 6: These all the temptations of self love, my child.
• 4:03
  Speaker 5: And the first sin in the world was pride.
• 4:07
  Speaker 2: They are very bad. I know you will all laugh
• 4:09
  Speaker 2: at me.
• 4:11
  Speaker 5: In that way we shall mortify your vanity.
• 4:14
  Speaker 6: Besides, since we are not at school here, all that
• 4:18
  Speaker 6: our mother will consider in them will be the intention.
• 4:23
  Speaker 4: Begin and do not be afraid.
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: Sister Joanna of the Cross reciting to our.
• 4:30
  Speaker 2: Beloved mother on the day of her blessed Saint her birthday,
• 4:34
  Speaker 2: most Reverend Mother, on this happy day your daughter's unite
• 4:39
  Speaker 2: for your welfare to pray. We are the sheep who
• 4:43
  Speaker 2: under your care are seeking out heaven, the path that
• 4:47
  Speaker 2: leads there on one side, the roses on the other,
• 4:51
  Speaker 2: the thorn on the top of the mountain. Jesus of
• 4:55
  Speaker 2: Mary born to Jesus. We pray long years for your
• 4:59
  Speaker 2: life and for the Virgin Maria freedom from strife, and
• 5:04
  Speaker 2: maybe years by in good with each other, in holiness
• 5:08
  Speaker 2: and joy, our dearly loved mother.
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: The nuns applaud and I'll speak at once. They are
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: like the jewels of the Virgin Sister and nez depreciatively.
• 5:26
  Speaker 10: She has copied them out of the book.
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: Sister Joanna, the cross carried away by her triumph.
• 5:32
  Speaker 2: Long live our mother, long.
• 5:36
  Speaker 11: Long come.
• 5:39
  Speaker 4: You must not flatter me, my children. The verses are
• 5:42
  Speaker 4: very pretty. Many thanks, my daughter. I did not know
• 5:46
  Speaker 4: that we had a poet in the house. You must
• 5:48
  Speaker 4: copy them out for me on a piece of paper,
• 5:51
  Speaker 4: so that I may have them to read.
• 5:54
  Speaker 2: They are copied already, Reverend Mother, if your reverence will
• 5:57
  Speaker 2: be pleased to accept them.
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: He offers her a roll of parchment tied elaborately with
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: blue ribbons. The verses are written on the parchment and
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: embellished with a border of flowers, doves and hearts, all
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: of which have been painted by hand. Prioris, taking and
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: unrolling the.
• 6:14
  Speaker 4: Parchment, bless me, what clear writing and what a beautiful
• 6:19
  Speaker 4: border can you paint too?
• 6:22
  Speaker 2: No, Reverend Mother system Maria Jesus copied out the verses
• 6:26
  Speaker 2: as Sister Sigario painted the border. Sister Marcella tied the bows.
• 6:32
  Speaker 7: So it is a remembrance from all the novices.
• 6:35
  Speaker 4: And all the while I knew nothing about it, the
• 6:38
  Speaker 4: children have learned how to dissimulate very skillfully.
• 6:42
  Speaker 2: We had permission from Mother Annis and Francis. She gave
• 6:46
  Speaker 2: us the ribbon and the parchment.
• 6:48
  Speaker 4: No wonder then, so the mother mistress of novices knows
• 6:52
  Speaker 4: also how to keep secrets.
• 6:55
  Speaker 6: Once only for today.
• 6:58
  Speaker 2: Today you must forgive everything, Prioris, smiling.
• 7:03
  Speaker 4: The fault is not a grave one.
• 7:06
  Speaker 5: Not unless it leads them to pride themselves upon their accomplishments.
• 7:11
  Speaker 5: The blessed Mother Santa Teresa de Rezus never permitted her
• 7:14
  Speaker 5: daughters to do fancy work, even combats as very least expected,
• 7:20
  Speaker 5: and ostentation is not becoming in a heart which has
• 7:24
  Speaker 5: avowed itself to poverty and humility.
• 7:28
  Speaker 6: Glory be to God, Mother Vicarious, But why must your
• 7:31
  Speaker 6: reverence always be looking for five feet on the cat?
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: Sister Marcella laughs flagrantly.
• 7:40
  Speaker 5: That laugh was most in opportune.
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: Sister Marcella pretending repentance, but still continuing to laugh in
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: spite of herself.
• 7:50
  Speaker 7: I beg your pardon, your reverence. I didn't mean it.
• 7:54
  Speaker 7: This sister has such temptations to laugh, and she can't
• 7:58
  Speaker 7: help it.
• 8:00
  Speaker 5: Biting your tongue would help it.
• 8:02
  Speaker 7: Don't you believe it your reverence? No, indeed, it wouldn't.
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: Priors, thinking it best to intervene.
• 8:10
  Speaker 4: Come, You must not answer back, my daughter to day
• 8:14
  Speaker 4: I wish to punish nobody.
• 8:16
  Speaker 5: Not to day nor never.
• 8:19
  Speaker 4: What does your reverence mean by that, Mother Vicarous?
• 8:23
  Speaker 5: What we all know, Reverend Mother, that the patience of
• 8:26
  Speaker 5: your reverence is inexhaustible.
• 8:30
  Speaker 4: Surely your reverence is not sorry that it is so.
• 8:34
  Speaker 5: Not upon my account. No, for by the grace of God,
• 8:38
  Speaker 5: I am able to fulfill my obligation and accommodate myself
• 8:43
  Speaker 5: to the letter and spirit of our holy rule. But
• 8:46
  Speaker 5: there are those who are otherwise, who encouraged by a
• 8:50
  Speaker 5: leniency may stumble and even fall.
• 8:55
  Speaker 4: Has your reverence anything definite in mind to say?
• 8:58
  Speaker 6: If so?
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: Say it?
• 9:00
  Speaker 5: I have noticed for some time, and the Lord will
• 9:04
  Speaker 5: absolve me of malice, that these temptations to love of
• 9:09
  Speaker 5: which Sister Marcella speaks have been abounding in this community.
• 9:14
  Speaker 5: And these, taken with other manifestations of self indulgence, not
• 9:19
  Speaker 5: any less effervescant, are signs of a certain relaxation of
• 9:24
  Speaker 5: virtue and deportment.
• 9:27
  Speaker 4: I hardly think we need trouble ourselves. Upon that account.
• 9:31
  Speaker 4: Providence has been pleased of late to bring into our
• 9:34
  Speaker 4: fold some tender lambs. And perhaps they do frisk a
• 9:38
  Speaker 4: little sometimes in the pastures of the Lord, But the
• 9:41
  Speaker 4: poor children may no harm. Am I right in your opinion, Mother,
• 9:46
  Speaker 4: Mistress of Novices?
• 9:48
  Speaker 6: You are always right in my opinion. Reverend Mother Gadamo,
• 9:53
  Speaker 6: salt Mindomino your reverences.
• 9:56
  Speaker 5: Of course, know what you are doing. I have compled
• 10:00
  Speaker 5: with my obligation.
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: The bell rings at the entrance. Sister Dona, who is
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: an active little old woman, goes up to the grill
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: and looks through it, after first having made a reverence
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: to the Prioress.
• 10:14
  Speaker 11: Ave Maria Purisima.
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: A voice outside.
• 10:19
  Speaker 15: Conceived without sin. Is it permitted to speak with the
• 10:22
  Speaker 15: mother abbess? Say what you have need of brother, Then
• 10:27
  Speaker 15: here's a present for her from my lady, the Mayor's wife,
• 10:31
  Speaker 15: who wishes her happiness and sends her this present. And
• 10:36
  Speaker 15: she's sorry she can't come herself to tell her, but
• 10:39
  Speaker 15: she can't. And you know the reason.
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: The prioress sighs, lifting up her eyes to Heaven, and
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: the others do the same, all sighing in unison.
• 10:52
  Speaker 15: And even if she could on that account, she couldn't
• 10:56
  Speaker 15: do it because she's sick in bed. And you know
• 11:00
  Speaker 15: the reason.
• 11:02
  Speaker 11: God's will be done. Can the poor woman get no rest?
• 11:06
  Speaker 11: Tell her that we will send her a jar of
• 11:08
  Speaker 11: ointment in the name of the blessed Saint Clara, and
• 11:11
  Speaker 11: say that these poor sisters never forget her in their prayers.
• 11:16
  Speaker 11: They pray every day that the Lord will send their comfort.
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: She turns the wheel by the grill and a basket appears,
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: neatly covered with a white cloth.
• 11:26
  Speaker 11: Ah, and the reverend mother thanks her for this remembrance,
• 11:31
  Speaker 11: and may God be with you, brother.
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: Approaching the others with the basket which she has taken
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: from the.
• 11:37
  Speaker 11: Wheel, Poor lady, what tribulations our Lord sends into this
• 11:42
  Speaker 11: world upon the cross of matrimony.
• 11:45
  Speaker 4: And to her more than anybody, such a submissive creature,
• 11:49
  Speaker 4: and merit to perfect prodigal.
• 11:53
  Speaker 6: Now that we are on the subject your reverence, and
• 11:56
  Speaker 6: have the part by the handle, so to speak to
• 11:59
  Speaker 6: your reverence, says know that the blasphemies of that man
• 12:02
  Speaker 6: have completely turned his head. You heard the best of
• 12:06
  Speaker 6: the parish church ringing at noon yesterday, Well that was
• 12:10
  Speaker 6: because the mayor ordered them to be wrong, because in
• 12:13
  Speaker 6: the election at Madrid yesterday the Republicans had the majority.
• 12:18
  Speaker 7: Godless us, God, bless us, bless us, God, bless us.
• 12:24
  Speaker 5: Did the priest give his consent to that?
• 12:27
  Speaker 10: The priest is another sheep of the same color. He
• 12:31
  Speaker 10: belongs to the same flock. May the Lord forgive me
• 12:34
  Speaker 10: if I lack charity. Didn't your reverences? Hear the sacrilege
• 12:38
  Speaker 10: he committed upon our poor chaplain, who was holier than
• 12:42
  Speaker 10: God's bread, Well he told him that he was more
• 12:46
  Speaker 10: liberal than the mayor, and that the next thing he knew,
• 12:50
  Speaker 10: when he least expected it, he was going to sing
• 12:52
  Speaker 10: the androitis to the mass, to the music of the
• 12:55
  Speaker 10: hymn of Riego.
• 12:58
  Speaker 4: Stop enough, not right to repeat such blasphemies.
• 13:03
  Speaker 6: Yes, columnies invented by unbelievers, the evil minded.
• 13:08
  Speaker 10: No such thing, didn't Father Collixtus tell me himself while
• 13:13
  Speaker 10: he was dressing for Mass this morning. We'll have to
• 13:16
  Speaker 10: put a new strip pretty soon down the middle of his.
• 13:18
  Speaker 4: Chestuball what again?
• 13:22
  Speaker 10: Yes, it's all worn out. It looks terribly poor. Father
• 13:28
  Speaker 10: Callixtus is so eloquent, pounding on his chest all the time.
• 13:34
  Speaker 10: He simply tears the silk to pieces.
• 13:37
  Speaker 5: Dods will be done.
• 13:39
  Speaker 4: The man is a saint, and all this while we
• 13:42
  Speaker 4: have been forgetting the present from the mayor's wife.
• 13:45
  Speaker 9: Bring it nearer, Sister Mercy, What a big basket.
• 13:51
  Speaker 11: It's very light though.
• 13:53
  Speaker 10: Oh it's easy to see what sister has a sweet tooth, as.
• 13:58
  Speaker 8: If she didn't like sweet.
• 14:01
  Speaker 7: Now, Sisternez, what did we see you doing this morning?
• 14:06
  Speaker 7: You know we caught you licking the cake pan, yourself.
• 14:09
  Speaker 10: I licking the pan, your sister licking the pan? Oh
• 14:15
  Speaker 10: what slander?
• 14:16
  Speaker 4: Hey, zeus, come, you must not be displeased, sister Innes,
• 14:21
  Speaker 4: for it was said only in pleasantry. Ah, Sister Marcella,
• 14:26
  Speaker 4: sister Marcella, do have a little more circumspection and beg
• 14:30
  Speaker 4: your sister's pardon.
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: Sister Marcella kneeling before sister.
• 14:34
  Speaker 7: Ynez, pardon me. Sister has made God pardon you, and
• 14:40
  Speaker 7: give me your hand to kiss as penance for having
• 14:43
  Speaker 7: offended you.
• 14:45
  Speaker 4: That is the way my children should behave humbly and
• 14:49
  Speaker 4: with contrition. Sister Innes. Give sister Marcella your headn't kiss,
• 14:54
  Speaker 4: since she begs it of you so humbly.
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: Sister Marcella spitefully after kis her hand.
• 15:01
  Speaker 7: Aye. But what a smell of vanilla you have on
• 15:05
  Speaker 7: your fingers, sister goody, we're going to have cookies for lunch.
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: The others laugh, Sister Inez, irritated, almost in tears.
• 15:16
  Speaker 10: Vanilla, God, a mercy, vanilla. Look at me do my
• 15:22
  Speaker 10: fingers smell of vanilla?
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: Priorus imposing silence.
• 15:27
  Speaker 4: Surely the devil must be in you, sister Marcella, and
• 15:30
  Speaker 4: may God forgive you for it. Go and kneel in
• 15:33
  Speaker 4: the corner there with your face to the wall, and
• 15:36
  Speaker 4: make the cross with your arms while you repeat a
• 15:38
  Speaker 4: greater station. May the Lord forgive you for it willingly,
• 15:43
  Speaker 4: Reverend mother.
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: Sister Ynez rubbing her hands under her scapulary.
• 15:48
  Speaker 10: Too bad, Too bad, I I aye, old.
• 15:54
  Speaker 7: Box of bones.
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: She goes and kneels in the corner right, but keeps
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: smiling and turning her head while she lets herself sink
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: back on her heels, as if not taking the penance
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: too seriously.
• 16:08
  Speaker 4: You may uncover the basket now, sister. Let us see
• 16:12
  Speaker 4: what is in it, with.
• 16:13
  Speaker 11: Your permission, Reverend mother. Why it's a cage.
• 16:18
  Speaker 9: With a canary in it.
• 16:20
  Speaker 10: A canary?
• 16:26
  Speaker 11: A canary it is?
• 16:30
  Speaker 13: Let me see so lovely?
• 16:32
  Speaker 6: Isn't it pretty?
• 16:34
  Speaker 8: The dear isn't it cunning?
• 16:36
  Speaker 2: Though? It looks as if it were made of silk.
• 16:39
  Speaker 10: I wonder if it can sing?
• 16:41
  Speaker 4: Of course it can sing. The mayor's wife would never
• 16:44
  Speaker 4: send us a canary that couldn't sing.
• 16:47
  Speaker 9: What a beautiful cage. Why there's a scroll on the
• 16:51
  Speaker 9: front that.
• 16:52
  Speaker 6: Isn't a scroll? It has letters on it?
• 16:55
  Speaker 8: Why so it has look and see what they say?
• 16:59
  Speaker 6: The convent of Dominican nuns.
• 17:04
  Speaker 10: I'd call that a pretty airy convent.
• 17:07
  Speaker 5: The good woman is holy. It in God's spread.
• 17:11
  Speaker 4: She could not have sent me anything that would have
• 17:13
  Speaker 4: pleased me better. I've always been anxious to have a canary.
• 17:18
  Speaker 10: The Carmelite sisters have two lovely canaries, and they say
• 17:22
  Speaker 10: last year on Holy Thursday, they hung them in the
• 17:25
  Speaker 10: door of the tomb they have in the church for Easter,
• 17:28
  Speaker 10: and it was like a miracle to hear them sing.
• 17:32
  Speaker 6: Then if our sings, we can hang him in the
• 17:34
  Speaker 6: church this year and take the music box away.
• 17:37
  Speaker 4: No, for the music box is a present from the chaplain,
• 17:41
  Speaker 4: and he would rightly be offended. We will have the
• 17:44
  Speaker 4: box and the canary there together, and when we wind
• 17:47
  Speaker 4: up the box, it will encourage the bird to sing.
• 17:51
  Speaker 2: Oh, look at him now, he's taking his buff.
• 17:55
  Speaker 13: See how he jumps.
• 17:57
  Speaker 4: What wonders God performs?
• 18:00
  Speaker 5: And yet there are misguided creatures who pretend that the
• 18:04
  Speaker 5: world made itself.
• 18:07
  Speaker 10: Sister Marcella stuck her tongue out at me.
• 18:10
  Speaker 7: Oh, Reverend Mother, I did nothing of the kind.
• 18:14
  Speaker 5: How nothing of the kind. Didn't I see it with
• 18:17
  Speaker 5: my own eyes? And I was struck dumb.
• 18:20
  Speaker 7: I said nothing of the kind, as has that I
• 18:24
  Speaker 7: had stuck my tongue out at Sister Inez. I stuck
• 18:28
  Speaker 7: it out because there was a fly on the end
• 18:30
  Speaker 7: of my nose, and since I had my arms out
• 18:33
  Speaker 7: making the cross, I had to frighten him away with something.
• 18:37
  Speaker 2: Reverend Mother, since this is your Saint's day, when she
• 18:41
  Speaker 2: please excuse Sister Marcella this time.
• 18:44
  Speaker 8: Yes, Reverend Mother, I am sure she won't do anything
• 18:48
  Speaker 8: that's wrong again.
• 18:49
  Speaker 4: Sister Innes is the one who has been offended, and
• 18:53
  Speaker 4: she is the only one who has the right to
• 18:55
  Speaker 4: request her pardon.
• 18:57
  Speaker 9: She she does, she does?
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: You do, look, sisters with a wry face.
• 19:05
  Speaker 10: Your reverence will pardon her. When your reverence thinks best.
• 19:10
  Speaker 4: Then come here, my erring daughter. She knows that I
• 19:13
  Speaker 4: pardon her because of the day, and so as not
• 19:16
  Speaker 4: to spoil the pleasure of her sisters.
• 19:20
  Speaker 7: May God reward you, Reverend Mother, and.
• 19:23
  Speaker 4: Set your veil straight, for this is the Lord's house,
• 19:27
  Speaker 4: and it looks as if you were going to an excursion.
• 19:29
  Speaker 4: And now to yourselves, everyone, to the novices, what are
• 19:34
  Speaker 4: you whispering about?
• 19:36
  Speaker 9: We were not whispering, Mother. We wanted to ask you something.
• 19:42
  Speaker 8: And we are afraid to do it.
• 19:44
  Speaker 4: Is it as bad as that?
• 19:47
  Speaker 8: No, it isn't bad.
• 19:49
  Speaker 2: But your reverence might think so I might.
• 19:53
  Speaker 4: I'm not so evil minded.
• 19:56
  Speaker 13: I are.
• 20:00
  Speaker 9: Our missions will tell you the mean me.
• 20:03
  Speaker 6: Do you want me to yes?
• 20:05
  Speaker 7: Yes, do.
• 20:08
  Speaker 16: With God's help, I will try, though I don't know
• 20:12
  Speaker 16: for certain. I think what they want is for your
• 20:15
  Speaker 16: reverence to give them permission to talk a little while
• 20:18
  Speaker 16: they're waiting for the beginning of the fiesta.
• 20:21
  Speaker 6: Am I right?
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: Yes?
• 20:23
  Speaker 8: Yes, hard do do?
• 20:27
  Speaker 7: Long live our mother?
• 20:29
  Speaker 4: Silence? Silence? What haven't I had talking enough today? After
• 20:34
  Speaker 4: the dispensation I allowed them this morning.
• 20:37
  Speaker 5: The appetite always grows by what it feeds on. It
• 20:42
  Speaker 5: is an unruly monster, and woe to her who gives
• 20:46
  Speaker 5: it rain. If they came under my authority, I would
• 20:50
  Speaker 5: not give them opportunity to make a single slip for
• 20:54
  Speaker 5: the Holy Opostle. Saint James has said, and well said.
• 20:58
  Speaker 5: He who says that he has not offended by his
• 21:01
  Speaker 5: tongue lies.
• 21:04
  Speaker 7: Ah, Sister Crucifixion, don't spoil this holiday for our mother.
• 21:10
  Speaker 5: Spoil today? Who pays any attention to what I say
• 21:14
  Speaker 5: in this house?
• 21:16
  Speaker 4: Will you promise not to whisper nor offend the Lord
• 21:18
  Speaker 4: with foolish talk?
• 21:20
  Speaker 9: We promise.
• 21:22
  Speaker 4: Then you may talk as much as you like until
• 21:24
  Speaker 4: the hour for prayers.
• 21:27
  Speaker 5: Thanks.
• 21:27
  Speaker 6: Thanks.
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: The bell rings at the entrance twice, two rings.
• 21:33
  Speaker 4: The doctor cover your faces.
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: The nuns lower their veils over their faces.
• 21:39
  Speaker 4: And pass out through the cloister.
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: The nuns begin to file out slowly and disappear through
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: the cloister. Sister Sagarrio approaching the prioris.
• 21:50
  Speaker 9: This sister has a felon.
• 21:51
  Speaker 4: Reverend, Mother, remain then, and you too, Sister Maria Jesus.
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: The sister Dora opens the Prioress. Sister to Neerra, Sister Zagrario,
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: and Sister Maria Jesouth remain. Sister to Nera unchains and
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: bolts and opens the door. The doctor enters. He is
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: about sixty years of.
• 22:14
  Speaker 12: Age, a Maria Purissima, conceived without sin.
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: He comes in.
• 22:22
  Speaker 12: Good morning, sister.
• 22:24
  Speaker 11: Good morning doctor.
• 22:26
  Speaker 12: Well what progress are we making in holiness to day?
• 22:31
  Speaker 12: Ha ha doctor enough enough, no doubt, no.
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: Doubt discovering the prioress.
• 22:41
  Speaker 12: Congratulations, Mother, what a heretic?
• 22:45
  Speaker 4: And yet you remember the days of the saints.
• 22:48
  Speaker 12: You are the saint, mother, you are the Saint Ah.
• 22:52
  Speaker 4: You must not scandalize me before my novices.
• 22:56
  Speaker 12: Novices? Where where I said so? When I came in,
• 23:01
  Speaker 12: I smell fresh meat, don Josse, don Josse, But I
• 23:07
  Speaker 12: say no more. Come to work, to work. What is
• 23:13
  Speaker 12: the trouble with these white lambs.
• 23:16
  Speaker 9: Your handmaid has a felon doctor.
• 23:19
  Speaker 12: Eh on the hand, and such a lovely hand. Well,
• 23:25
  Speaker 12: we shall have to lend s it, sister, What not now?
• 23:30
  Speaker 12: No tomorrow, sister, tomorrow, unless it yields first to a
• 23:35
  Speaker 12: poultice and five poten nosters. Remember not one less, no doctor,
• 23:43
  Speaker 12: and this other one eh.
• 23:45
  Speaker 4: Ah, doctor. She has been giving me a great deal
• 23:49
  Speaker 4: of worry. She falls asleep in the choir. She sighs
• 23:52
  Speaker 4: continually without being able to assign any reason. She cries
• 23:56
  Speaker 4: over nothing whatever, and she has no appetite for anything
• 24:00
  Speaker 4: but salads.
• 24:02
  Speaker 12: How old are you eighteen? How long have you been
• 24:06
  Speaker 12: in this holy house?
• 24:08
  Speaker 8: Two years and a half?
• 24:10
  Speaker 12: And how many more do you remain before you come
• 24:13
  Speaker 12: to profession?
• 24:15
  Speaker 8: Two and a half more. If the Lord should be
• 24:17
  Speaker 8: pleased to grant this unworthy novice grace to become his bride,
• 24:22
  Speaker 8: let me see the face lift you fail.
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: Sister, Maria, Jesus lifts surveil.
• 24:29
  Speaker 4: Hm.
• 24:30
  Speaker 12: The Lord has not bad taste, a little pale, but
• 24:34
  Speaker 12: well rounded, well rounded.
• 24:38
  Speaker 13: Don who'd say?
• 24:39
  Speaker 11: But whoever hurt of such a doctor?
• 24:42
  Speaker 12: So we have melancholy, then a constant disposition to sigh
• 24:48
  Speaker 12: combined with loss of appetite. Well, there is nothing else
• 24:53
  Speaker 12: for it, sister, a cold bath every morning, and afterwards
• 24:58
  Speaker 12: a few minutes exercise in the guard.
• 25:00
  Speaker 11: D exercise, do nusse un?
• 25:05
  Speaker 12: Thus we write at once home to her mother to
• 25:07
  Speaker 12: hurry and fetch her and find us a good husband
• 25:10
  Speaker 12: for her.
• 25:11
  Speaker 8: Oh, don't husse. But the sister has taken her vows
• 25:15
  Speaker 8: to the church.
• 25:17
  Speaker 12: Well, in that case, cold water. There is nothing else
• 25:21
  Speaker 12: for it for melancholy at eighteen, matrimony or cold water.
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: Sister Zagrario, summoning her courage.
• 25:31
  Speaker 9: You always talk so much about it, doctor, Why don't
• 25:34
  Speaker 9: you get married yourself?
• 25:36
  Speaker 12: Because I am sixty, daughter, and it is fifteen years
• 25:40
  Speaker 12: since I have felt melancholy. Besides, whom do you expect
• 25:45
  Speaker 12: me to marry? When all the pretty girls go into convents?
• 25:48
  Speaker 4: Doctor, doctor, this conversation will become displeasing to me.
• 25:54
  Speaker 12: Is this all the walking infirmary?
• 25:57
  Speaker 11: Yes? Doctor?
• 25:58
  Speaker 12: And the invalid? How is she she.
• 26:02
  Speaker 11: Is the same to day? Doctor? Poor sister Marie of
• 26:05
  Speaker 11: consolation hasn't closed her eyes all night? Don't you remember yesterday?
• 26:10
  Speaker 11: She said? She said, as if she had a vipe
• 26:12
  Speaker 11: and gnawing at her vitals. Well to day she has
• 26:16
  Speaker 11: a frog in her throat.
• 26:18
  Speaker 12: Goodness, gracious, come let me see. Let me see what
• 26:24
  Speaker 12: a continual war the devil does wade against these poor sisters.
• 26:29
  Speaker 12: Long life, mother, and happy days.
• 26:32
  Speaker 4: Long life to you.
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: Doctor, to sister Donera, go.
• 26:36
  Speaker 4: With him, sister, and meanwhile, these children will take care
• 26:40
  Speaker 4: of the gate.
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: Sister Tournera takes a bell from the table, and her
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: veil covering her face, precedes the doctor through the cloister,
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: ringing solemnly a warning they disappear.
• 26:53
  Speaker 4: I must repair to the choir. I fear that to
• 26:56
  Speaker 4: day I have fallen behind in devotion and prayer.
• 27:00
  Speaker 8: Will your reverence give us permission to call the others?
• 27:04
  Speaker 4: Yes, call them, but be careful that you commit no frivolity.
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: The prioress goes out, Sister Maria Jesus approaching one of
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: the arches of the cloister.
• 27:15
  Speaker 8: Sister Marcella, Sister Joanna of the Cross, come out. We
• 27:20
  Speaker 8: are watching the grill, and we have permission to talk.
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: Sister Marcella and Sister Joanna of the Cross re enter.
• 27:28
  Speaker 9: What shall we talk about?
• 27:30
  Speaker 2: Let Sister Marcella tell us a story.
• 27:33
  Speaker 7: Yes, so that you'll all be shocked.
• 27:36
  Speaker 8: Hi, we are not such hypocrites as that sister.
• 27:40
  Speaker 7: Or so that sister Sagaradio can run and tell on
• 27:43
  Speaker 7: us to the mother mistress.
• 27:45
  Speaker 9: Oh, thank you, sister.
• 27:47
  Speaker 7: It wouldn't be the first time either.
• 27:50
  Speaker 9: You needn't mind be sisters. I Am going to sit
• 27:53
  Speaker 9: here in the corner and work, and you can talk
• 27:55
  Speaker 9: about whatever you please. I shan't hear you.
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: She takes a pair of pincers, some beads, and a
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: piece of wire out of her pocket, and, sitting down
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: in a corner, begins to string a rosary.
• 28:09
  Speaker 2: Oh, come on, sister, don't be foolish.
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: They all surround her, and finally she allows herself to
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: be persuaded, after many expressions of protests, like a small
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: child who says, I won't play.
• 28:24
  Speaker 9: Why if they haven't forgotten the canary?
• 28:27
  Speaker 7: Poor thing? How do you like to be left in
• 28:30
  Speaker 7: this nest of silly women? Little fellow? Let's open the cage, fool,
• 28:36
  Speaker 7: so that he can fly away silly if he wants to.
• 28:40
  Speaker 8: No, no, oh, mother wouldn't like that.
• 28:45
  Speaker 7: He would like it, though.
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: Come on, She opens the door of the cage.
• 28:50
  Speaker 7: Fly out, sweetheart, fly away. The world is yours. You
• 28:55
  Speaker 7: are free.
• 28:57
  Speaker 2: He doesn't fly out, he doesn't budge stupid.
• 29:02
  Speaker 7: Don't you see what a bright sunny day it is?
• 29:05
  Speaker 2: They say canaries are born in cages. And see now
• 29:09
  Speaker 2: he doesn't care to fly away.
• 29:11
  Speaker 8: He'd rather stays shut up all his life like us nuns.
• 29:16
  Speaker 7: Then you're a great fool, Bertie.
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: She shuts the door of the cage.
• 29:22
  Speaker 7: God made the air for wings, and he made wings
• 29:25
  Speaker 7: to fly with. While he might be soaring away above
• 29:28
  Speaker 7: the clouds, he is satisfied to stay here all day,
• 29:31
  Speaker 7: he shut up in his cage, hopping between two sticks
• 29:35
  Speaker 7: and a leaf of lettuce. What sense is there in
• 29:38
  Speaker 7: a bird a mother? And what wouldn't I give to
• 29:42
  Speaker 7: be a bird?
• 29:44
  Speaker 2: Yes, what wouldn't you give to be a bird?
• 29:48
  Speaker 8: They say that the swallows fly away every year over
• 29:52
  Speaker 8: the ocean, and nobody knows where they go.
• 29:55
  Speaker 9: I often dream that I am flying in the night time.
• 29:59
  Speaker 9: That is not flying, but floating, just floating in the
• 30:03
  Speaker 9: air without wings.
• 30:06
  Speaker 7: I often dream that I am running fast, oh so fast,
• 30:10
  Speaker 7: and that I am skipping downstairs without ever touching my
• 30:13
  Speaker 7: feet to the ground or to the stairs.
• 30:16
  Speaker 9: Isn't it nice?
• 30:17
  Speaker 6: Though?
• 30:18
  Speaker 9: And how disappointed you are when you wake up and
• 30:22
  Speaker 9: find out after all that it isn't so, and that
• 30:25
  Speaker 9: it was only a dream.
• 30:27
  Speaker 7: I have dreamed that dream so many times that now
• 30:30
  Speaker 7: when I wake up, I hardly know whether it is
• 30:32
  Speaker 7: the truth or a dream.
• 30:34
  Speaker 2: What do you suppose it is that makes you dream
• 30:37
  Speaker 2: the same dream so many times?
• 30:40
  Speaker 7: I don't know unless it is because it is the
• 30:43
  Speaker 7: things you want to do and you can't, and so
• 30:46
  Speaker 7: you do them in dreams.
• 30:48
  Speaker 8: What nice things you want to do?
• 30:51
  Speaker 9: But then what good would it be if you could
• 30:53
  Speaker 9: do them? For instance, if we had wings like birds,
• 30:58
  Speaker 9: where will we fly? I?
• 31:00
  Speaker 7: I would fly to the end of the world.
• 31:04
  Speaker 8: I to the Holy Land, to Mount Calvary.
• 31:08
  Speaker 2: I would fly to Bethlehem, and to the garden of Nazareth,
• 31:12
  Speaker 2: where the Virgin lived with her child.
• 31:14
  Speaker 9: I do know that there is a garden at Nazareth.
• 31:17
  Speaker 2: Of course, there's a garden there with a brook running
• 31:21
  Speaker 2: by it. The song says, so the Virgin washed his
• 31:25
  Speaker 2: garments and hung them on the rose. The little angels sing,
• 31:30
  Speaker 2: and the water onwards floes. There was a garden too
• 31:35
  Speaker 2: by our house in the village, with a big rose
• 31:38
  Speaker 2: bush on the border of a brook that ran by it.
• 31:42
  Speaker 2: I used to kneel beside the brook and sing that
• 31:44
  Speaker 2: song while I washed my baby brother's clothes. For there
• 31:48
  Speaker 2: were seven of us children, and I was the oldest.
• 31:52
  Speaker 2: And that's what I miss.
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: Most, drying her eyes with her hands.
• 31:58
  Speaker 2: Aye, mother, And I always cry when I think of
• 32:01
  Speaker 2: that baby boy. But it isn't right. I know he
• 32:05
  Speaker 2: loved me more than he did mother. And the day
• 32:08
  Speaker 2: that they took me away to the convent and I
• 32:11
  Speaker 2: left home, he cried. He cried so that it nearly
• 32:15
  Speaker 2: broke his little baby heart.
• 32:17
  Speaker 7: I have a brother and a sister, but they are
• 32:19
  Speaker 7: both older than I am. My sister married two years
• 32:23
  Speaker 7: ago and now she has a baby. She brought him
• 32:26
  Speaker 7: here once to show me.
• 32:28
  Speaker 2: I remember he stuck his little hand in through the grill,
• 32:32
  Speaker 2: and your sister kissed it. Did you ever think of
• 32:36
  Speaker 2: house off baby's hands are. Whenever I take communion, I
• 32:40
  Speaker 2: try to think I am receiving our Lord as a
• 32:43
  Speaker 2: little child, and i'd take him, press him like this
• 32:46
  Speaker 2: to my heart, and then it seems to me like
• 32:49
  Speaker 2: he is so little and so helpless that he can't
• 32:53
  Speaker 2: refuse me anything. And then I think that he is crying,
• 32:57
  Speaker 2: and I pray to the virgin to come and help
• 33:00
  Speaker 2: help me quiet him. And if I wasn't ashamed, because
• 33:03
  Speaker 2: I know you would all laugh at me, I'd crooned
• 33:06
  Speaker 2: to him then and broke him to sleep and sing
• 33:09
  Speaker 2: him baby songs.
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: The bell rings by the grill, the.
• 33:13
  Speaker 9: Bell, I wonder who it is?
• 33:16
  Speaker 2: Better ask? That's why they left us here.
• 33:19
  Speaker 8: Who'll do it?
• 33:21
  Speaker 9: I won't, I'm afraid, so am I.
• 33:24
  Speaker 7: You are not usually so bashful, I must say, I'll ask,
• 33:29
  Speaker 7: though I was the last to enter the house.
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: Going up to the grill, she says.
• 33:34
  Speaker 7: Ave Maria Purissima.
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: A moment's silence.
• 33:41
  Speaker 7: No one answers.
• 33:43
  Speaker 2: Try again, say it louder.
• 33:45
  Speaker 7: Ave Maria Purissima.
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: Nothing this time either, Sister Maria Jesus summoning her courage.
• 33:54
  Speaker 8: Ah, Maria Parissima.
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: Another silence. The novices look at each other in surprise.
• 34:04
  Speaker 7: It is very strange.
• 34:05
  Speaker 8: It must be spirits.
• 34:08
  Speaker 2: Oh, I'm afraid, nonsense. It's some little boy who has
• 34:12
  Speaker 2: rung the bell on his way home from school so
• 34:14
  Speaker 2: as to be funny.
• 34:16
  Speaker 8: Peep through the hole and see if anybody's.
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: There, Sister Marcella stooping down to look.
• 34:23
  Speaker 7: No nobody, But it looks as if there was something
• 34:27
  Speaker 7: on the wheel.
• 34:28
  Speaker 2: Yes, let me see, yes, can't you turn it?
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: She turns the wheel and a second basket appears, carefully
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: covered with a white cloth like the first.
• 34:42
  Speaker 9: A basket another present for our mother.
• 34:46
  Speaker 8: Of course it is, and here's a paper.
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: Tied fast to it, Sister Joanna of the Cross, reading,
• 34:53
  Speaker 1: but without unfolding the paper for.
• 34:56
  Speaker 9: The mother, prairess, didn't I tell you?
• 35:00
  Speaker 7: Somebody wants to give her a surprise.
• 35:02
  Speaker 2: I wonder if it's Dounk Calyxtas, the chaplain.
• 35:06
  Speaker 8: Of course it is, child, or maybe it's the doctor.
• 35:10
  Speaker 2: No, he was just here and he didn't say anything
• 35:14
  Speaker 2: about it.
• 35:15
  Speaker 9: All the same, it might be from him. Maybe he
• 35:18
  Speaker 9: wants to keep it a secret.
• 35:19
  Speaker 8: Let's take it.
• 35:20
  Speaker 1: Off the wheel, Sister Marcella, lifting and carrying it to
• 35:24
  Speaker 1: the table.
• 35:25
  Speaker 7: We'd better put it here by the canary. My, but
• 35:28
  Speaker 7: it's heavy.
• 35:30
  Speaker 9: I wonder what it is.
• 35:32
  Speaker 7: Let's lift the corner and see.
• 35:34
  Speaker 8: No, for curiosity is a sin, what of it?
• 35:38
  Speaker 7: Come on, let's do it. Who will ever know?
• 35:42
  Speaker 1: She lifts the corner of the car a little and
• 35:44
  Speaker 1: starts back quickly. Aye, Sister Joanna of the Cross, hurrying
• 35:49
  Speaker 1: to look Jesus, Sister Maria, Jesus looking too, Oh Maria,
• 35:57
  Speaker 1: Sister Sagaraio following.
• 36:00
  Speaker 9: God bless us.
• 36:02
  Speaker 1: The convent is aroused at the cry of Sister Marcella. Presently,
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: the Prioress, the vicarous, the mistress of the novices, and
• 36:10
  Speaker 1: the other nuns enter from different directions.
• 36:13
  Speaker 4: What is the matter? Who called out?
• 36:16
  Speaker 5: Who gave dead shout?
• 36:17
  Speaker 6: Is anything wrong?
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: The four novices, trembling, stand with their backs to the basket,
• 36:23
  Speaker 1: their bodies hiding it completely.
• 36:26
  Speaker 5: It is easy to see it was Sister Marcella.
• 36:29
  Speaker 4: What has happened? Speak? Why are you all standing in
• 36:33
  Speaker 4: a row like statues?
• 36:35
  Speaker 6: Has anything happened to you?
• 36:37
  Speaker 2: No, Reverend Mother, not to us, but no Reverend Mother.
• 36:42
  Speaker 7: It's some one rang the bell by the wheel, and
• 36:45
  Speaker 7: we looked, and there was nobody there. And they left
• 36:49
  Speaker 7: a basket, this basket, and and your sister had the
• 36:53
  Speaker 7: curiosity to undo it.
• 36:55
  Speaker 5: Naturally you couldn't do otherwise.
• 36:59
  Speaker 4: And it's well, what is it?
• 37:02
  Speaker 7: It's I. I think it would be better for your
• 37:05
  Speaker 7: reference to look yourself.
• 37:07
  Speaker 4: By all means. Let me see.
• 37:10
  Speaker 1: She goes up to the basket and uncovers it.
• 37:14
  Speaker 7: Half I Maria a baby, a baby, baby, baby, baby.
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: The Vicaro is horrified. It crosses herself, Prioris, falling back.
• 37:27
  Speaker 4: Your reverences may see for yourselves.
• 37:30
  Speaker 1: The nuns hurry up to the basket and surround it.
• 37:33
  Speaker 5: Have him Maria, How can such an insignificant object be
• 37:37
  Speaker 5: so pink?
• 37:39
  Speaker 6: It's asleep?
• 37:41
  Speaker 2: See it open its little hands.
• 37:44
  Speaker 8: Why it has hair under the edge of its cap.
• 37:47
  Speaker 5: It is like an angel, a pretty angel for the
• 37:51
  Speaker 5: Lord to send us.
• 37:53
  Speaker 2: I mother vicarous, you mustn't say that.
• 37:57
  Speaker 4: Where do you come from, little one?
• 37:59
  Speaker 5: For some nice place you may be sure?
• 38:03
  Speaker 4: Who can tell? Mother? There is so much poverty in
• 38:06
  Speaker 4: the world, so much distress.
• 38:08
  Speaker 5: There is so much vice.
• 38:11
  Speaker 6: Reverend Mother, you say that there was nobody at the.
• 38:15
  Speaker 7: Grill, nobody, no mother. The bell rang, we answered, but
• 38:21
  Speaker 7: there was nobody there.
• 38:23
  Speaker 1: Sister Sargarrio picking up the paper which has fallen to
• 38:26
  Speaker 1: the floor.
• 38:27
  Speaker 9: Here is a paper which came with it.
• 38:30
  Speaker 1: The prior is taking the paper for the mother Prioress.
• 38:35
  Speaker 5: An appropriate present for your reverence.
• 38:38
  Speaker 4: Yes, it is a letter.
• 38:41
  Speaker 1: She unfolds the paper and begins to read.
• 38:45
  Speaker 4: Reverend Mother, forgive the liberty which a poor woman takes,
• 38:49
  Speaker 4: trusting in your Grace's charity. Of leaving at the grill
• 38:53
  Speaker 4: this newborn babe. I, my lady, am one of those
• 38:57
  Speaker 4: they call women of the street, and I assure you
• 39:00
  Speaker 4: I am sorry for it. But this is the world
• 39:03
  Speaker 4: and you can't turn your back on it. And it
• 39:05
  Speaker 4: costs as much to go down as it does to
• 39:08
  Speaker 4: go up. And that is what I am writing to
• 39:10
  Speaker 4: tell you, my lady. The truth is, this little girl
• 39:14
  Speaker 4: hasn't any father. That is to say, it is the
• 39:17
  Speaker 4: same as if she didn't have any and I, who
• 39:20
  Speaker 4: am her mother. I leave her here, although it costs
• 39:24
  Speaker 4: me something to leave her for although one is what
• 39:27
  Speaker 4: one is, one isn't all bad. And I love her
• 39:31
  Speaker 4: as much as any mother loves her baby. Though she
• 39:33
  Speaker 4: is the best lady in the land. But all the same,
• 39:37
  Speaker 4: though she came into this world without being wanted by
• 39:40
  Speaker 4: any one, she doesn't deserve to be the daughter of
• 39:43
  Speaker 4: the woman. She is, above all, my lady, of her father,
• 39:47
  Speaker 4: and I don't want her to have to blush for
• 39:50
  Speaker 4: having been born the way she was, nor for having
• 39:53
  Speaker 4: the mother she has, And to tell it to me
• 39:55
  Speaker 4: to my face. And I pray by everything you hold,
• 39:58
  Speaker 4: dear my lady, that you will protect her and keep
• 40:02
  Speaker 4: her with you in this holy house, and you won't
• 40:05
  Speaker 4: send her to some orphanage, your asylum, for I was
• 40:08
  Speaker 4: brought up there myself, and I know what happens in them.
• 40:11
  Speaker 4: Although the sisters are kind, yes they are, and have pity.
• 40:15
  Speaker 4: And some day when she grows up and she asks
• 40:18
  Speaker 4: for her mother, you must tell her that the devil
• 40:21
  Speaker 4: has carried her away. And I ask your pardon, for
• 40:24
  Speaker 4: I must never show myself to her, nor see her again,
• 40:28
  Speaker 4: nor give you any care nor trouble. So you can
• 40:31
  Speaker 4: do this good work in peace if you will do it.
• 40:34
  Speaker 4: For I implore you again, my lady, that you will
• 40:37
  Speaker 4: do it for the memory of your own dear mother,
• 40:40
  Speaker 4: and God will reward you, and she will live in
• 40:43
  Speaker 4: peace and grow up as God wills. For what the
• 40:46
  Speaker 4: eyes have not seen, the heart cannot understand, My lady.
• 40:51
  Speaker 17: Bless us have my ear poor woman, baby, dear darling baby,
• 41:00
  Speaker 17: What pretty mothers the Lord selects for his children.
• 41:04
  Speaker 4: God moves in his own way, sister, God moves in
• 41:07
  Speaker 4: his own ways.
• 41:09
  Speaker 10: Is that all the letter says?
• 41:12
  Speaker 4: What more could it say?
• 41:14
  Speaker 1: The doctor and Sister Dolnerra have re entered during the reading.
• 41:19
  Speaker 12: Exactly what more could it say, what do you think,
• 41:23
  Speaker 12: don jose? I think that somebody has made you a
• 41:27
  Speaker 12: very handsome present.
• 41:29
  Speaker 4: But what are we going to do with it? Because
• 41:31
  Speaker 4: I this poor woman. She has put this poor creature
• 41:35
  Speaker 4: into our hands, and I would protect her willingly as
• 41:38
  Speaker 4: she asks and keep her here with us.
• 41:41
  Speaker 9: Yes, yes, yes, mother, do you do silence?
• 41:47
  Speaker 4: But I don't know if we can. That is, if
• 41:50
  Speaker 4: it is right, if it is according to law. For
• 41:53
  Speaker 4: when we enter this holy rule, we renounce all our
• 41:57
  Speaker 4: rights and to adopt a child legally, I don't know
• 42:01
  Speaker 4: whether it can be done. How does it seem to you?
• 42:05
  Speaker 12: I agree with you. Legally you have no right to maternity.
• 42:10
  Speaker 5: And even if we head, would it be proper for
• 42:13
  Speaker 5: our children to be the offspring of ignominy and sin?
• 42:18
  Speaker 4: I would not raise that question, Reverend Mother, for the
• 42:21
  Speaker 4: child is not responsible for the sin in which she
• 42:24
  Speaker 4: was born, and her mother, in renouncing her motherhood, has
• 42:28
  Speaker 4: bitterly paid the penalty.
• 42:31
  Speaker 5: Yes, it didn't cost her much to renounce it.
• 42:35
  Speaker 4: Do we know, Mother? Do we know?
• 42:37
  Speaker 5: We can? Guess? It is easy enough to go scattering
• 42:41
  Speaker 5: children about the world if all you have to do
• 42:43
  Speaker 5: is leave them to be picked up afterwards by the
• 42:45
  Speaker 5: first person who happens along.
• 42:48
  Speaker 12: How easy it is might be a matter for discussion.
• 42:52
  Speaker 12: There are aspects of it which are not so easy.
• 42:55
  Speaker 9: Oh, she's opened her mouth.
• 42:58
  Speaker 2: The little angel is hungry.
• 43:00
  Speaker 8: She's sucking her thumb.
• 43:02
  Speaker 2: Make her take her thumb out of her mouth. She'll
• 43:05
  Speaker 2: swallow too much and then she'll have a pain.
• 43:08
  Speaker 9: Don't suck your fingers.
• 43:09
  Speaker 4: Baby.
• 43:10
  Speaker 2: Isn't she good? Though? You stop her playing and she
• 43:14
  Speaker 2: doesn't cry.
• 43:16
  Speaker 4: There is another thing we must consider. What are we
• 43:19
  Speaker 4: to do for a nurse.
• 43:21
  Speaker 2: The gardener's wife has a little boy she is nursing now.
• 43:25
  Speaker 4: In that case, I hardly think she would care to
• 43:28
  Speaker 4: be responsible for two.
• 43:30
  Speaker 2: But it won't be any trouble. She's so tiny. Besides,
• 43:34
  Speaker 2: we can help her out with cow's milk and a
• 43:36
  Speaker 2: little pap The milk will keep on the eyes, and
• 43:40
  Speaker 2: we can clear it with a dash of tea.
• 43:43
  Speaker 12: It is easy to see, Sister Joanna of the Cross
• 43:46
  Speaker 12: has had experience with children.
• 43:49
  Speaker 2: Your handmaid has six little brothers and sisters. Ah, Reverend Mother,
• 43:54
  Speaker 2: give her to me to take care of, and then
• 43:56
  Speaker 2: you will see how strong she'll grow up.
• 43:59
  Speaker 5: Nothing else needy to complete a demoralization of the novices.
• 44:04
  Speaker 5: You can see for yourselves how naturally they take to
• 44:07
  Speaker 5: this dissipation.
• 44:09
  Speaker 4: I want you to tell me, frankly, what do you think,
• 44:12
  Speaker 4: all of you?
• 44:14
  Speaker 6: It seems to me the Reverend Mother.
• 44:16
  Speaker 1: Prior is a smiling but one at a time.
• 44:20
  Speaker 11: It is an angel which the Lord has sent us.
• 44:23
  Speaker 11: And your sister thinks that we ought to receive the
• 44:26
  Speaker 11: like an angel with open arms.
• 44:29
  Speaker 6: Of course, we aren't suppose your reverences. It hadn't been
• 44:33
  Speaker 6: a little girl. But I don't know. Some poor animal,
• 44:38
  Speaker 6: a dog, a cat, or a dove like the one
• 44:42
  Speaker 6: which flew in here two years ago and fell wounded
• 44:45
  Speaker 6: in the garden trying to get away from those butchers
• 44:48
  Speaker 6: at the pigeon traps. Wouldn't we have taken it in,
• 44:52
  Speaker 6: wouldn't we have cared for it? And would it have
• 44:55
  Speaker 6: lived happy forever afterward in its cage? And how can
• 45:00
  Speaker 6: we do less poor creature? But a soul will be
• 45:02
  Speaker 6: for a bird.
• 45:04
  Speaker 11: We must have charity.
• 45:07
  Speaker 5: I am glad the Mother Mistress of Novices has brought
• 45:10
  Speaker 5: up the incident of that bird, for it will absolve
• 45:14
  Speaker 5: me from bringing it up, as it might seem with
• 45:16
  Speaker 5: some malice. It was against my advice that that creature
• 45:21
  Speaker 5: was received into this house, and afterward we had good
• 45:24
  Speaker 5: reason to regret it, with this one saying yes, I
• 45:28
  Speaker 5: caught him, and that one no, I took care of him,
• 45:31
  Speaker 5: and another he opens his beak whenever I pass by,
• 45:34
  Speaker 5: and another see him flap his wings. He does it
• 45:37
  Speaker 5: at me. Vanities, sophistries deceits, all of them snares of
• 45:44
  Speaker 5: the devil continually. And if all this fuss was about
• 45:48
  Speaker 5: a bird, what will happen to us with a child
• 45:52
  Speaker 5: in the house. This one will have to dress it,
• 45:55
  Speaker 5: that one will have to wash it. Another will be
• 45:57
  Speaker 5: boasting it is looking at me, another that it had
• 46:01
  Speaker 5: heard that it goggles most. There is Sister Joanna of
• 46:05
  Speaker 5: the Cross, making faces at it already.
• 46:09
  Speaker 2: What did your reverence say?
• 46:11
  Speaker 5: Dissipation and more dissipation. Your reverences should remember that when
• 46:17
  Speaker 5: we passed behind these bars, we renounced forever all personal,
• 46:22
  Speaker 5: all selfish affection.
• 46:25
  Speaker 6: Is it selfish to give a poor foundling a little love?
• 46:29
  Speaker 5: It is for us. Our God is a jealous god.
• 46:33
  Speaker 5: The scriptures tell.
• 46:35
  Speaker 6: Us, so bless us mercy me.
• 46:39
  Speaker 5: And this quite apart from other infractions of our order
• 46:43
  Speaker 5: which such indulgence must involve. For example, your reverences, and
• 46:49
  Speaker 5: I among the first take no account of the fact
• 46:52
  Speaker 5: that at this very moment we are transgressing our rule.
• 46:57
  Speaker 5: We are conversing with our faces unvailed in the presence
• 47:01
  Speaker 5: of a man.
• 47:03
  Speaker 12: That is true, Ladies, as far as I am concerned,
• 47:08
  Speaker 12: take no account of me.
• 47:10
  Speaker 4: No, doctor, you are of no account. I beg your pardon.
• 47:14
  Speaker 4: Don Rose, I hardly know what I am saying. Your
• 47:17
  Speaker 4: reference is right. Cover yourselves, that is, it makes no difference.
• 47:23
  Speaker 4: The harm has been done only once. But comply with
• 47:27
  Speaker 4: your consciences.
• 47:29
  Speaker 1: The vicarous that covers her face, the others hesitating, wait
• 47:33
  Speaker 1: for the prioress, who makes a movement to do so,
• 47:36
  Speaker 1: but then desists. The vigorous when she is covered cannot
• 47:41
  Speaker 1: see that she has become the victim of the rest.
• 47:45
  Speaker 4: But where were we? I confess that my heart prompts
• 47:48
  Speaker 4: me to keep the child.
• 47:50
  Speaker 5: The doctor already has told us that we have no
• 47:53
  Speaker 5: right to maternity.
• 47:55
  Speaker 6: But the child is God's child, and she is returning
• 47:59
  Speaker 6: to to her father's mansion.
• 48:01
  Speaker 5: God has other mentions for his abandoned children.
• 48:06
  Speaker 2: Don't send it to the asylum.
• 48:08
  Speaker 4: No, her mother entreats us.
• 48:11
  Speaker 5: Her mother is not her mother. She has abandoned her.
• 48:16
  Speaker 4: She has not abandoned her. She has entrusted her to
• 48:19
  Speaker 4: others who seemed worthier to undertake her keeping.
• 48:23
  Speaker 5: Unholy egotism, Christian heroism. So we are coining phrases, are we?
• 48:31
  Speaker 5: Is this a convent or an illustrated weekly life?
• 48:35
  Speaker 6: Is hard to some people and thorny?
• 48:38
  Speaker 5: Yes, and into the details of it. It is not
• 48:42
  Speaker 5: becoming for us to go, Since, by the grace of
• 48:45
  Speaker 5: God we have been relieved from the temptations and the
• 48:48
  Speaker 5: frailties of the world.
• 48:51
  Speaker 6: All the more then we ought to have compassion on
• 48:54
  Speaker 6: those who have fallen and are down.
• 48:57
  Speaker 5: Compassion Mustian sentiment and.
• 49:00
  Speaker 4: The veil of charity silence. And let us not begin
• 49:06
  Speaker 4: by rending it, irritating ourselves and aggravating each other. Don Rose,
• 49:12
  Speaker 4: I suppose this birth will have to be reported.
• 49:15
  Speaker 12: It will Madam to the register, but then they will
• 49:20
  Speaker 12: take her away if nobody wants her. But if you
• 49:24
  Speaker 12: have made up your minds you would like to keep her,
• 49:27
  Speaker 12: I think I can propose a solution, a solution that
• 49:31
  Speaker 12: is legal perfectly, Thanks be to God. I am a
• 49:36
  Speaker 12: single man. But although I am not a saint, yet
• 49:39
  Speaker 12: I cannot take to myself the credit of having augmented
• 49:43
  Speaker 12: the population of this country by so much as a
• 49:46
  Speaker 12: single soul. I have not a penny, that is true.
• 49:50
  Speaker 12: But like everybody else, I have a couple of family names.
• 49:54
  Speaker 12: They are at the service of this little stranger. If
• 49:57
  Speaker 12: they will be of use to her. She will have
• 49:59
  Speaker 12: no father and no mother. I cannot help that, but
• 50:03
  Speaker 12: you will have an honorable name.
• 50:05
  Speaker 4: Do you mean to say that I am.
• 50:07
  Speaker 12: Willing to adopt her exactly and to entrust her to
• 50:12
  Speaker 12: your care because my own house. The fact is, the
• 50:16
  Speaker 12: hands of donnize Celia are a little rough for handling
• 50:19
  Speaker 12: these tiny Dresden dolls. And perhaps I might prove a
• 50:23
  Speaker 12: bit testy myself. The neighbors all say that the air
• 50:27
  Speaker 12: grows blue if my coat rubs against me as I
• 50:29
  Speaker 12: walk down the street.
• 50:32
  Speaker 1: All laugh.
• 50:34
  Speaker 12: Besides, I am sure Sister Crucifixion is better equipped for
• 50:38
  Speaker 12: the robing of saints.
• 50:40
  Speaker 5: Doctor, God help us both.
• 50:43
  Speaker 4: Is it agreed, God reward you for it? Yes, in
• 50:48
  Speaker 4: spite of everything, we shall notify the Superior immediately. It
• 50:52
  Speaker 4: is not necessary that the child should live in the cloister.
• 50:56
  Speaker 4: She can remain with the gardener's wife until she has
• 50:59
  Speaker 4: grown old and enter here later when she has the
• 51:02
  Speaker 4: discretion to do so. She has been entrusted to our hands,
• 51:07
  Speaker 4: and it is our duty to take care of her,
• 51:09
  Speaker 4: a duty of conscience.
• 51:12
  Speaker 12: If I cannot be of further service, I will go,
• 51:16
  Speaker 12: and I will speak to the register.
• 51:18
  Speaker 4: As you go, be so kind as to ask the
• 51:21
  Speaker 4: gardener's wife to come in. We must see if she
• 51:24
  Speaker 4: will take charge of the child and nurse her, and
• 51:27
  Speaker 4: tell her also to bring with her some of her
• 51:30
  Speaker 4: little boy's clothes.
• 51:32
  Speaker 2: Yes, for we shall have to make a change immediately.
• 51:36
  Speaker 5: We shall not a change, but the beginning.
• 51:41
  Speaker 12: Good afternoon, ladies.
• 51:43
  Speaker 9: Good afternoon, afternoon.
• 51:48
  Speaker 1: The doctor goes out a pause.
• 51:53
  Speaker 4: Sisters, May God pardon us if we have acted in
• 51:56
  Speaker 4: this with aught but the greatest purity of motive. I
• 52:00
  Speaker 4: hope and pray that His grace will absorb us of offense,
• 52:04
  Speaker 4: nor find us guilty of having loved too much one
• 52:07
  Speaker 4: of his poor children. This child shall be brought up
• 52:11
  Speaker 4: in the shadow of this house, for we may say
• 52:14
  Speaker 4: that her guardian angel has delivered her at the door.
• 52:18
  Speaker 4: From this hour forth we are all charged with the
• 52:21
  Speaker 4: salvation of her soul. The Lord has entrusted to us
• 52:25
  Speaker 4: an angel and we must return to him a saint.
• 52:29
  Speaker 4: Watch and pray, Watch and pray.
• 52:32
  Speaker 13: Why will pay.
• 52:38
  Speaker 4: And now bring her to me, Sister Joanna of the Cross.
• 52:42
  Speaker 4: For as yet it can scarcely be said that I have.
• 52:44
  Speaker 1: Seen her looking at the child.
• 52:48
  Speaker 4: Lamb of God sleeping us quietly in her basket, as
• 52:52
  Speaker 4: if it were a cradle of pure gold. What is
• 52:56
  Speaker 4: it that children see when they are asleep that brings
• 52:59
  Speaker 4: to their fe an expression of such peace?
• 53:04
  Speaker 2: They seek God and the Virgin Mary.
• 53:07
  Speaker 8: May be the angel who watches over them, whispers in
• 53:10
  Speaker 8: their ears, and tells them about Heaven.
• 53:13
  Speaker 4: Who can say, but it is a comfort to the
• 53:16
  Speaker 4: soul to see a child asleep.
• 53:18
  Speaker 8: It makes you want to be a saint.
• 53:20
  Speaker 9: Reverend mother, will your reverends grant me permission to give
• 53:24
  Speaker 9: our kiss?
• 53:25
  Speaker 6: Oh?
• 53:26
  Speaker 8: No, for it hasn't been baptized yet, and it is
• 53:29
  Speaker 8: a sin to kiss a heathen.
• 53:32
  Speaker 4: She is right. We must send for the chaplain and
• 53:34
  Speaker 4: have her baptized immediately.
• 53:37
  Speaker 10: What shall we call her Teresa, after our beloved mother
• 53:42
  Speaker 10: Maria of the miracles bien Venia.
• 53:46
  Speaker 1: A large bell rings outside.
• 53:49
  Speaker 4: The summons to the choir. We can decide later. Let
• 53:53
  Speaker 4: us go the.
• 53:54
  Speaker 1: Nuns file out, slowly, looking at the child as they go.
• 53:58
  Speaker 4: Remain with her, Mister Joanna of the Cross, you understand, children,
• 54:03
  Speaker 4: and wait for the coming of the gardener's wife. Follow
• 54:06
  Speaker 4: the devotions from where you are, and do not let
• 54:09
  Speaker 4: your attention falter.
• 54:12
  Speaker 1: All the nuns go out, except Sister Joanna of the Cross,
• 54:15
  Speaker 1: who bends over the basket, then sinks on her knees
• 54:19
  Speaker 1: beside it. The choir is heard within, led by a
• 54:23
  Speaker 1: single nun in solo, the responses being made in course,
• 54:28
  Speaker 1: in which Sister Joanna of the Cross joins. While the
• 54:31
  Speaker 1: nun is leading. Sister Joanna of the Cross talks and
• 54:34
  Speaker 1: plays with the child. Then she makes her responses with
• 54:38
  Speaker 1: the others in.
• 54:40
  Speaker 8: No migne patriotphiliate Spiritui Santo.
• 54:44
  Speaker 1: Sister Joanna of the Cross crosses herself and says with
• 54:47
  Speaker 1: the other nuns, Amen, Sister Joanna of the Cross to
• 54:53
  Speaker 1: the child, pretty.
• 54:55
  Speaker 10: One, Pretty one, deis an agitatorium, may'am and tinde.
• 55:08
  Speaker 1: Sister Joanna of the Cross to the child, do you
• 55:11
  Speaker 1: love me, sweetheart?
• 55:13
  Speaker 2: Do you love me?
• 55:15
  Speaker 8: Gloria Patriot filio et spiritui sancto.
• 55:25
  Speaker 6: Amen.
• 55:29
  Speaker 1: But this time Sister Joanna of the Cross makes no response. Instead,
• 55:33
  Speaker 1: she bends over the basket, embracing the child, passionately, oblivious
• 55:37
  Speaker 1: of all else, and says.
• 55:40
  Speaker 2: Little one, little one, whom do you love?
• 55:45
  Speaker 1: Curtain in Fact one, Act too of the Cradle Song
• 55:55
  Speaker 1: by Gregorio Martinez Sierra, translated by John Garrett Underhill. This
• 56:02
  Speaker 1: is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the
• 56:05
  Speaker 1: public domain. For more information are to volunteer, please visit
• 56:10
  Speaker 1: LibriVox dot org. Interlude spoken by the poet.
• 56:17
  Speaker 14: You came tonight to listen to a play instead into
• 56:22
  Speaker 14: a convent. You made way singular hardihood, almost prophanation. What
• 56:28
  Speaker 14: will a poet not do to create sensation? Pardon good nuns,
• 56:34
  Speaker 14: him who disturbs the rest and troubles the serene quietude
• 56:39
  Speaker 14: of your nest, kindling amid the shades of this chaste
• 56:43
  Speaker 14: bower the flame of love you have renounced and flower, Nay,
• 56:48
  Speaker 14: do not frown, because I have said love, for you
• 56:52
  Speaker 14: must know chaste brides of God, above that which you
• 56:56
  Speaker 14: have deemed charity and pity. The act of clemency for
• 57:01
  Speaker 14: the presy unfriended foundling. Fate has brought along yearning of
• 57:07
  Speaker 14: adoption and the cradle song. No other is than Love's fire,
• 57:12
  Speaker 14: divine and human passion, ever brooding in the heart of woman. Ah,
• 57:20
  Speaker 14: love of woman, by whose power we live offend so often,
• 57:25
  Speaker 14: but to see forgive. Whence do you draw your grace
• 57:29
  Speaker 14: but from above? Whence simply simply from maternal love. Yes,
• 57:35
  Speaker 14: we are children woman. In your arms, your heart is bred.
• 57:39
  Speaker 14: You soothe on wild alarms like children. Give us the
• 57:44
  Speaker 14: honey of your breast in a cradle. Always your lover
• 57:48
  Speaker 14: sinks to rest, although he prostitutes our groveling flesh. Mother,
• 57:54
  Speaker 14: if lover, mother, if sister too, Mother by pure essence,
• 57:59
  Speaker 14: day long and night through mother. If you laugh, or
• 58:03
  Speaker 14: if with us you cry. In the core of being,
• 58:06
  Speaker 14: in fiber and in mesh, every woman carries, so God
• 58:11
  Speaker 14: has willed on high a baby in her bosom, sleeping eternally.
• 58:19
  Speaker 14: So being women, you are lovers nuns, despite the censured
• 58:24
  Speaker 14: diamond which runs across your virgin shields, showing in your
• 58:29
  Speaker 14: lives how to be mothers without being wives. And in
• 58:34
  Speaker 14: this child of all you have poured all the honey
• 58:37
  Speaker 14: of your souls and blended all the fire of the sun,
• 58:42
  Speaker 14: all fragrance and all light. The first sweet morning kiss,
• 58:46
  Speaker 14: the last good night till all her being tenderness exhales
• 58:51
  Speaker 14: her heart, the home of love and nightingales a hundred
• 58:56
  Speaker 14: times a woman, but no saint. The nuns pray in
• 58:59
  Speaker 14: the choir outside her plaint a song. Her prayer gave
• 59:04
  Speaker 14: rippling laughter, mass and the may morning slip by she
• 59:08
  Speaker 14: running after or dreaming in the garden. The roses smell
• 59:13
  Speaker 14: so sweetly. No child, this for the hermit'sself. She loves heaven,
• 59:18
  Speaker 14: but in good company, and before the altar of the
• 59:22
  Speaker 14: virgin sea, her with a boy ruddier than the candle's flame,
• 59:27
  Speaker 14: who calls her sister, and the nun's aunt for name,
• 59:31
  Speaker 14: a smiling, bashful boy who soon will grow to be
• 59:35
  Speaker 14: a strong man, learned to give a blow and take one,
• 59:39
  Speaker 14: conquer worlds, and redress wrong justice in his heart and
• 59:43
  Speaker 14: on his lips a song. Sometimes she takes the cat up,
• 59:48
  Speaker 14: calls it dear. The nuns cross themselves religiously severe. The
• 59:54
  Speaker 14: child is mad, they say, ah, no such thing. With
• 59:58
  Speaker 14: her into the convent enter spring. This then, the simple story.
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 14: The poet would have told it day by day if
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 14: well he could, in shining glory. But the tasks were vain.
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 14: The glory of our daily lives is plain. For life
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 14: builds up itself in such a way. The water runs
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 14: so clear, so bright the day that time is lulled
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 14: to sleep within these walls, an age or moment which passes.
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 14: Who recalls the wheel turns round, but no one notes
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 14: the turn. What matter? If the sisters locks that burn
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 14: with gold in time to silvery gray have paled, their
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 14: hoods conceal it, and the pinks have failed in the cheeks,
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 14: and the lilies on the brow there are no mirrors.
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 14: The sisters, then, as now may walk in the garden,
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 14: believe it still is may among these our hors, which
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 14: softly slip away this timeless time. We shyly pause at
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 14: that in which there is most warmth, the concordads of
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 14: youth and incense breaking off the spring. The years have passed,
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 14: the child is ripening. The curtain rises on a soul
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 14: in flower, and a love chapter claims us. For an
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 14: hour it is quiet afternoon, quiet breeding. The nuns are sewing,
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 14: and their sister reading.
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 1: Act at two parlor of a convent. At the rear
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 1: a grill with a double row of bars, a curtain
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 1: of dark woolen cloth hangs over the grill and intercepts
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 1: the view of the outer parlor to which visitors are admitted.
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 1: This is without decoration and may be brightly illuminated the
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 1: proper moment. From the garden. A number of oil paintings
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 1: of saints hang upon the walls, all of them very
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 1: old and showing black stains. With them, a carved crucifix
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 1: or large black wooden cross, a small window furnished with
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 1: heavy curtains, which, when drawn shut off the light completely
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 1: is cut. In the wall of the inner parlor, on
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 1: either side of the grill, high up toward the ceiling,
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 1: a pine table, a carved arm chair, two other arm chairs,
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 1: smaller chairs and benches, together with all the materials necessary foresewing.
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 1: The Prioress, the Mistress of Novices, Sisters Ines Tornre, Sister Sagrario,
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 1: Sister Joanna of the Cross, Sister Marcella, Sister Maria Jesus,
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 1: and the other nuns are discovered upon the rise of
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 1: the curtain. Only the vicarus is absent. All are seated sowing,
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 1: with the exception of Sister Maria Jesus, who stands in
• 1:02:52
  Speaker 1: the center to the left of the Priorus's chair reading.
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 1: A brig trousseau is spread out upon the table and chairs.
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 1: It is embroidered elaborately, trimmed with lace and tied with
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 1: blue silk ribbons. A new trunk stands against the wall
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 1: on the right, and trays being distributed about the benches
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 1: and upon the floor. Eighteen years have passed. It must
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 1: be remembered that the nuns have changed in appearance, and
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 1: those who were novices have now professed and have exchanged
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 1: the white for the black veil. Sister Maria Jesus reading
• 1:03:27
  Speaker 1: and Antonine the Treasury.
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 8: Of patience, the meditation of an afflicted soul in the
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 8: presence of its God, Ay first meditation, the sorrows of
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 8: an unhappy spirit submerged in a sea of woe.
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 1: Outside, Teresa's voice is heard singing gaily.
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 3: Come, singing and bringing flowers from the field. Flowers from
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 3: the field, sweet gardens, to Mary flowers. You must yield
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 3: for love sanctuary.
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 1: The reader stops and smiling, glances in the direction of
• 1:04:01
  Speaker 1: the window through which the voice is heard. The other
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 1: nuns smile also complacently. Priaris with affected severity.
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 4: The child interrupts us continually.
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 10: And a day like to day.
• 1:04:17
  Speaker 2: She sings like a lak.
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 6: She is so young.
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 4: I mother, continue reading, Sister Maria, Jesus.
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 8: The sorrows of an unhappy spirit submerged in a sea
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 8: of woe. My God, Oh, my God, save me for
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 8: every moment I die overwhelmed, I sink in the midst
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 8: of this terrible storm. Every moment I am buffeted and
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 8: borne down. I am sucked into the uttermost depths. And
• 1:04:47
  Speaker 8: there is no health in me.
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 3: There is a sing from the glory of your brightness,
• 1:04:53
  Speaker 3: radiantly sweet. Oh, let me stoop and bend me to
• 1:04:56
  Speaker 3: kiss your feet. Let me stoop and bend me to
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 3: kick your feet again.
• 1:05:02
  Speaker 1: The reader stops. The nuns smile again.
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 4: Sister, Sir Grario, will you step out into the garden
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 4: and ask the child not to sing? We are reading.
• 1:05:13
  Speaker 1: Sister Sargario goes out right after making the customary reverence.
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 4: Continue, Sister continue.
• 1:05:21
  Speaker 8: There is no health in me. I cannot support myself.
• 1:05:25
  Speaker 8: I cannot resist the shock of the horrible, unrushing waves.
• 1:05:29
  Speaker 3: You too, were happy, Mary, happy in his love, flowers
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 3: of love and springtime that bloom above.
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 1: The song is broken off suddenly, as if the nun
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 1: had arrived and commanded Teresa to stop. A moment later,
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 1: there is a sound.
• 1:05:44
  Speaker 4: Of light lefter it cannot be helped, smiling. The child
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 4: was born happy, and she will die so to the reader, continue.
• 1:05:56
  Speaker 7: I, lady of sorrows.
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 4: But Marcella, my daughter, why do you sigh like this?
• 1:06:04
  Speaker 4: Are you unwell?
• 1:06:06
  Speaker 7: No, Reverend mother, but your daughter has temptations to melancholy.
• 1:06:11
  Speaker 4: The Lord protect and keep you. You know how it
• 1:06:14
  Speaker 4: displeases me to see the shadow of melancholy enter this.
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 1: House, sister Marcella making a reverence. I, reverend mother, pardon
• 1:06:24
  Speaker 1: me and assign me some penance if I sin.
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 7: But your daughter cannot help it.
• 1:06:30
  Speaker 4: Who is thinking of sin? Go out into the garden
• 1:06:33
  Speaker 4: and take a little sunshine, daughter, That is what you need. I,
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 4: Reverend mother, you don't know what you say.
• 1:06:41
  Speaker 7: For when your daughter sees the flowers in the garden,
• 1:06:44
  Speaker 7: and the blue sky so bright above them, and the
• 1:06:47
  Speaker 7: sun so beautiful overhead, the temptation comes upon her then
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 7: to sigh more than ever. I.
• 1:06:56
  Speaker 4: If that is the case, return to your seat and
• 1:06:59
  Speaker 4: let us pray that it may cease. But do not
• 1:07:02
  Speaker 4: let me hear you sigh again, for I do not
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 4: wish to send you to the prison, to brighten your
• 1:07:08
  Speaker 4: spirit with solitude and confinement, as your reference desires.
• 1:07:13
  Speaker 1: Returning to her seat, I my soul, the Prioress raises
• 1:07:19
  Speaker 1: her eyes to heaven and resignation.
• 1:07:22
  Speaker 7: I blessed Virgin, I have sous.
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 4: What is this an epidemic? Nothing is wanting now but
• 1:07:31
  Speaker 4: that we should begin to sigh. In course, remember it
• 1:07:35
  Speaker 4: is with gladness and thanksgiving that the Lord is to
• 1:07:38
  Speaker 4: be served in Hymnis et Cantichis. For the second of
• 1:07:43
  Speaker 4: the fruits of the spirit is joy, and there is
• 1:07:46
  Speaker 4: none high but love, from which it springs.
• 1:07:50
  Speaker 1: A pause, Sister Maria Jesus reopens the book, and without
• 1:07:55
  Speaker 1: waiting for the signal from the Prioress, resumes reading.
• 1:07:59
  Speaker 8: I cannot resist the shock of the horrible. Onrushing waves,
• 1:08:04
  Speaker 8: they break over me unceasingly, irresistibly, they bear me down.
• 1:08:09
  Speaker 4: Close the book, Sister Maria Jesus for the pleased father
• 1:08:13
  Speaker 4: who wrote it, alas he too was of a melancholy
• 1:08:17
  Speaker 4: turn of mind.
• 1:08:19
  Speaker 1: Sister Maria Jesus closes the book, makes a reverence, and
• 1:08:22
  Speaker 1: sits down to soul. The Mother Vicarus appears in the
• 1:08:26
  Speaker 1: door on the left, accompanied solemnly by two other nuns.
• 1:08:30
  Speaker 4: Have you, Maria Puissima, conceived without sin?
• 1:08:35
  Speaker 5: Have I permissioned, Reverend Mother.
• 1:08:38
  Speaker 4: Enter and speak looking at her? If I am not mistaken,
• 1:08:44
  Speaker 4: your reverence is greatly disturbed.
• 1:08:47
  Speaker 5: You are not mistaken, Reverend Mother. No, and I dare
• 1:08:51
  Speaker 5: affirm it is not for a slight reason. Your reverence
• 1:08:54
  Speaker 5: will be Judge if this is the time and place
• 1:08:57
  Speaker 5: to confront with the charge of ipso facto a member
• 1:09:01
  Speaker 5: of this community.
• 1:09:03
  Speaker 4: Speak if the knowledge of the fault in public will
• 1:09:07
  Speaker 4: not in itself constitute a scandal and cause of offense, in.
• 1:09:12
  Speaker 5: The opinion of your handmade all cause of scandal will
• 1:09:15
  Speaker 5: be avoided by looking the offense straight in the face.
• 1:09:20
  Speaker 1: Speak then, vickerous, making a profound inclination.
• 1:09:25
  Speaker 5: I obey, Reverend Mother, while making the round of my
• 1:09:30
  Speaker 5: inspection of the celts with these two monitors, as your
• 1:09:34
  Speaker 5: reverence has been pleased to command.
• 1:09:37
  Speaker 1: The two monitors each make a reverence.
• 1:09:40
  Speaker 5: And coming to the cellar Sister Marcella, all.
• 1:09:43
  Speaker 1: The nuns look at Sister marcel who lowers her eyes.
• 1:09:47
  Speaker 5: I found under the mattress of the bed in itself
• 1:09:51
  Speaker 5: a suspicious circumstance and sufficient to constitute a sin, an
• 1:09:56
  Speaker 5: object which should never be found in the hands of
• 1:09:59
  Speaker 5: a religion, an object which, to say nothing of the
• 1:10:03
  Speaker 5: sin against the rule of holy poverty, which the private
• 1:10:06
  Speaker 5: possession and concealment of any property whatever must presuppose, is
• 1:10:12
  Speaker 5: by its very nature a root of perdition, and an
• 1:10:16
  Speaker 5: origin and source of evil.
• 1:10:19
  Speaker 4: Conclude, Mother, in Kott's name, for you keep us in suspense.
• 1:10:25
  Speaker 4: What is this object vicorous?
• 1:10:28
  Speaker 1: To one of the monitors, disclose its sister. The monitor
• 1:10:32
  Speaker 1: makes a reverence and draws from her sleeve a piece
• 1:10:35
  Speaker 1: of glass covered on one side with quicksilver.
• 1:10:38
  Speaker 4: A piece of looking glass.
• 1:10:41
  Speaker 5: Exactly a piece of looking glass.
• 1:10:45
  Speaker 1: Horrified silence on the part of the community.
• 1:10:48
  Speaker 4: What has Sister Marcella to say to this?
• 1:10:52
  Speaker 1: Sister Marcella leaving her place, a kneeling before priorus.
• 1:10:56
  Speaker 7: Mother, I confess my guilt, and I beseech your pardon.
• 1:11:01
  Speaker 1: Rise, Sister Marcella rises.
• 1:11:04
  Speaker 4: Unhappy woman. What was the use of this piece of glass?
• 1:11:09
  Speaker 7: To look at herself in it and amuse herself with
• 1:11:12
  Speaker 7: the side of a beauty, thus offending her maker with
• 1:11:16
  Speaker 7: pride and vainglory and the exhibition of her taste. No, Reverend, Mother,
• 1:11:21
  Speaker 7: no or else to dress herself up and fix herself
• 1:11:25
  Speaker 7: by it, and make faces and grimaces, such as they
• 1:11:29
  Speaker 7: do on the streets in these days.
• 1:11:31
  Speaker 1: The vicarous who has taken the beer, looks at herself
• 1:11:34
  Speaker 1: in it for a moment, then turns it hurriedly away.
• 1:11:39
  Speaker 7: No, Reverend mother, for what then? For nothing? Reverend mother?
• 1:11:45
  Speaker 4: What for nothing?
• 1:11:47
  Speaker 7: Your daughter means? For nothing? Evil? On the contrary, ha, Now,
• 1:11:53
  Speaker 7: I suppose we are going to hear that it is
• 1:11:55
  Speaker 7: a virtue in a religious to have a glass. No,
• 1:11:58
  Speaker 7: Reverend mother, it is not of virtue. But your references
• 1:12:03
  Speaker 7: know already that your sister suffers from temptations to melancholy. Yes, yes,
• 1:12:10
  Speaker 7: And when they seize upon her too strongly, they put
• 1:12:13
  Speaker 7: it into her head to climb trees, and run along
• 1:12:16
  Speaker 7: the tops of walls, and jump over the fences in
• 1:12:19
  Speaker 7: the garden, and to throw herself into the water of
• 1:12:22
  Speaker 7: the fountain. And since your sister knows that in a religious.
• 1:12:27
  Speaker 5: These these these extravagances.
• 1:12:31
  Speaker 7: Are unbecoming, your sister catches a sunbeam in the mirror
• 1:12:36
  Speaker 7: and makes it dance among the leaves and across the
• 1:12:39
  Speaker 7: ceiling of her cell, and over the walls opposite, and
• 1:12:43
  Speaker 7: so she consoles herself and imagines that it is a
• 1:12:46
  Speaker 7: butterfly or a bird, and can go wherever it pleaseth.
• 1:12:51
  Speaker 5: It can and stay there for.
• 1:12:55
  Speaker 4: This fault, Sister Marcella.
• 1:12:57
  Speaker 1: Sister Marcella kneels.
• 1:13:00
  Speaker 4: Which, without being a grave one, yet is more than
• 1:13:03
  Speaker 4: a little considered according to the constitution of our rule,
• 1:13:09
  Speaker 4: I assign you this penance to night. Before you retire,
• 1:13:14
  Speaker 4: you are to repeat four times in your cell the
• 1:13:17
  Speaker 4: psalms quamdalecta, Rise and return to your seat.
• 1:13:24
  Speaker 1: Sister Marcella obeys, but before seating herself, she makes a
• 1:13:28
  Speaker 1: reverence before each of the nuns priorist to the vicarous.
• 1:13:33
  Speaker 1: You may be seated the vicars and the two monitors
• 1:13:37
  Speaker 1: seat themselves. Three light knocks on the door. It is
• 1:13:41
  Speaker 1: Teresa who.
• 1:13:42
  Speaker 3: Says, are they Maria parissima conceived without sin? May I
• 1:13:49
  Speaker 3: come in?
• 1:13:50
  Speaker 4: Come in?
• 1:13:51
  Speaker 1: Teresa enters. She is eighteen, very pretty, very sunny, and
• 1:13:56
  Speaker 1: very gay, with nothing about her to suggest the mystic
• 1:13:59
  Speaker 1: of religious She is dressed simply in gray and wears
• 1:14:04
  Speaker 1: a white apron. She has a flower in her hair,
• 1:14:07
  Speaker 1: which has arranged modestly and without an excess of curls
• 1:14:11
  Speaker 1: or ornament.
• 1:14:12
  Speaker 4: Where are you coming from in such a hurry? You
• 1:14:15
  Speaker 4: are all out of breath.
• 1:14:17
  Speaker 3: From dressing the altar of the Virgin.
• 1:14:20
  Speaker 4: Did that put you out of breath?
• 1:14:23
  Speaker 3: No, mother, it's because I wanted it to be all
• 1:14:26
  Speaker 3: in white today, and there weren't white flowers enough in
• 1:14:29
  Speaker 3: the garden, so I had to climb up and cut
• 1:14:32
  Speaker 3: some branches off the acacia.
• 1:14:34
  Speaker 6: Did you climb a tree?
• 1:14:36
  Speaker 3: Yes, I climbed too. There weren't enough blossoms on one.
• 1:14:40
  Speaker 5: Jay Zeus I him Maria.
• 1:14:43
  Speaker 3: I wish you could see the view from the top
• 1:14:46
  Speaker 3: of the big acacia.
• 1:14:48
  Speaker 1: Sister Marcella's eyes open wide within thee.
• 1:14:51
  Speaker 5: Child, you have put yourself beyond the pail of God's mercy.
• 1:14:56
  Speaker 2: You might have fallen.
• 1:14:58
  Speaker 3: It's terrible to think of fallen. No, mother, why I've
• 1:15:03
  Speaker 3: climbed it a hundred times.
• 1:15:05
  Speaker 4: Then you must not do it again.
• 1:15:08
  Speaker 6: It is too late to forbid her.
• 1:15:10
  Speaker 4: Now that is true.
• 1:15:13
  Speaker 10: It is the last day she will dress the altar.
• 1:15:16
  Speaker 2: The very last.
• 1:15:18
  Speaker 3: Ah, mothers, you mustn't talk like this. Don't be sad.
• 1:15:23
  Speaker 5: No, we had better behave like you do. Though it
• 1:15:26
  Speaker 5: doesn't seem possible when you consider the day that it
• 1:15:29
  Speaker 5: is and you laughing and carrying on like one possessed.
• 1:15:33
  Speaker 4: The mother is right. A little more feeling to day, daughter,
• 1:15:37
  Speaker 4: a manner more subdued, would not have been out of place.
• 1:15:42
  Speaker 3: You are right, reverend mothers, you always are in the
• 1:15:45
  Speaker 3: holiness which, like a halo surrounds your reverend heads. But
• 1:15:49
  Speaker 3: when a girl wants to laugh, she wants to laugh. Although,
• 1:15:54
  Speaker 3: as mother Anna Saint Francis says, it may be the
• 1:15:57
  Speaker 3: most solemnous day of her life, it.
• 1:16:00
  Speaker 6: Is a solemn day, a very solemn day. You are
• 1:16:04
  Speaker 6: leaving this house in which you have passed eighteen years,
• 1:16:07
  Speaker 6: without scarcely so much as taking thought how it was
• 1:16:11
  Speaker 6: you came to be here. Tomorrow you will be your
• 1:16:15
  Speaker 6: own mistress, and you will have upon your conscience the
• 1:16:18
  Speaker 6: responsibilities of a wife.
• 1:16:21
  Speaker 5: Which, believe me, are not light. Men are selfish, fickle.
• 1:16:26
  Speaker 3: Antonio is very good.
• 1:16:28
  Speaker 5: However good he may be. He is a man, and
• 1:16:31
  Speaker 5: men are accustomed to command. They have been from the
• 1:16:34
  Speaker 5: beginning of the world, and it has affected their character.
• 1:16:38
  Speaker 5: And since you are very independent yourself and like to
• 1:16:42
  Speaker 5: have your own way.
• 1:16:43
  Speaker 3: Yes I have been spoiled, I know, but you will
• 1:16:47
  Speaker 3: see now how good I will be. It will come
• 1:16:50
  Speaker 3: out all right.
• 1:16:51
  Speaker 2: Do you want to spoil the day for her?
• 1:16:54
  Speaker 6: No?
• 1:16:55
  Speaker 3: Mother, No, you won't spoil it, for I am very
• 1:16:58
  Speaker 3: very happy. You have all been so good to me.
• 1:17:02
  Speaker 5: Nonsense, No such thing.
• 1:17:04
  Speaker 3: But it isn't nonsense. I know this is God's house.
• 1:17:09
  Speaker 3: But you might have closed the doors to me, and
• 1:17:11
  Speaker 3: you have flung them wide open freely. I have lived
• 1:17:14
  Speaker 3: here eighteen years, and in all this time, to the
• 1:17:18
  Speaker 3: very moment that I am leaving it, you have never
• 1:17:21
  Speaker 3: once reminded me that I have lived here on your charity.
• 1:17:24
  Speaker 2: Don't say such things.
• 1:17:27
  Speaker 3: Yes, I must say them on your charity, on your alms,
• 1:17:31
  Speaker 3: like a poor beggar and an outcast. I don't mind
• 1:17:35
  Speaker 3: saying it nor thinking it, for I have been so
• 1:17:38
  Speaker 3: happy here. Yes, I am happy now, happier than the
• 1:17:43
  Speaker 3: daughter of a king. For I love you all so
• 1:17:46
  Speaker 3: much that I want to kiss even the walls and
• 1:17:49
  Speaker 3: hug the trees, for even the walls and the trees
• 1:17:51
  Speaker 3: have been kind to me. This has been the coven
• 1:17:54
  Speaker 3: of my heart.
• 1:17:55
  Speaker 7: It has been your home if you had only been
• 1:17:58
  Speaker 7: content always to remain in it.
• 1:18:01
  Speaker 4: We must not talk like this. God moves in his
• 1:18:04
  Speaker 4: own ways.
• 1:18:06
  Speaker 6: And then all of them his children may do his service.
• 1:18:11
  Speaker 5: The child was not born to be religious. The things
• 1:18:14
  Speaker 5: of the world appealed to her too strongly.
• 1:18:17
  Speaker 3: It is true, the world appeals to me, poor me.
• 1:18:22
  Speaker 3: It seems to me sometimes as if everybody loved me,
• 1:18:25
  Speaker 3: as if everything was calling to me everywhere to come.
• 1:18:29
  Speaker 3: I have been so happy in this home, and yet
• 1:18:33
  Speaker 3: all the time I have been thinking how great the
• 1:18:36
  Speaker 3: world was, how wonderful. Whenever I have gone out into
• 1:18:41
  Speaker 3: the street, how my heart leaped. It felt as if
• 1:18:44
  Speaker 3: I were going to fly. It was so light, my
• 1:18:48
  Speaker 3: brain was in a whirl that I was so glad
• 1:18:51
  Speaker 3: to come back again into this house. It felt so good,
• 1:18:55
  Speaker 3: as if you were all taking me up once more
• 1:18:57
  Speaker 3: into your arms, as if I had fallen to sleep
• 1:19:00
  Speaker 3: in them again and was warm folded beneath the shelter
• 1:19:04
  Speaker 3: of the everlasting wings.
• 1:19:06
  Speaker 5: The wings of your good Angel, who stood waiting at
• 1:19:09
  Speaker 5: the door, stood waiting till you came.
• 1:19:12
  Speaker 4: Why should he have to wait? Her good Angel has
• 1:19:16
  Speaker 4: always gone with her, and surely there never has been
• 1:19:19
  Speaker 4: a time when he has had to turn away his face.
• 1:19:23
  Speaker 4: Am I right, daughter?
• 1:19:25
  Speaker 3: You are mother?
• 1:19:26
  Speaker 1: They needn't have asked her that, Sister Maria Jesus rising, here.
• 1:19:31
  Speaker 8: Are the bows for the corset covers. Do you want
• 1:19:34
  Speaker 8: them pinned or sowed?
• 1:19:37
  Speaker 6: Sewed?
• 1:19:37
  Speaker 10: I say, down the middle.
• 1:19:40
  Speaker 6: Of course, down the middle.
• 1:19:42
  Speaker 8: The reason I asked was because in the pattern they
• 1:19:45
  Speaker 8: are all fastened down the side.
• 1:19:47
  Speaker 1: Mistress and novices bending over to examine the fashion plates
• 1:19:51
  Speaker 1: with Sister Inez and Sister Maria. Jesus.
• 1:19:55
  Speaker 6: Yes, don't you see she is right?
• 1:19:58
  Speaker 10: That's funny. They are pretty that way.
• 1:20:02
  Speaker 6: I say, it's absurd.
• 1:20:04
  Speaker 8: What do you think, Mother Crucifixion.
• 1:20:07
  Speaker 5: Don't ask me. I don't think. I neither understand nor
• 1:20:11
  Speaker 5: wish to understand these things pomp and vanity, artifices of
• 1:20:16
  Speaker 5: the devil, who, they tell me, is very well acquainted
• 1:20:20
  Speaker 5: with the dressmakers of Paris, and takes part in their
• 1:20:23
  Speaker 5: designs and encourages their abbreviations. Take it away, take that
• 1:20:28
  Speaker 5: paper out of my sight, for it never should have
• 1:20:31
  Speaker 5: entered this holy house.
• 1:20:32
  Speaker 7: Aye, But we have to know the fashions. Mother, the fashions.
• 1:20:37
  Speaker 5: The fashions go to Hell, and you will find the fashions.
• 1:20:42
  Speaker 5: Any other place would be too far behind.
• 1:20:45
  Speaker 8: But you don't want the child to be married, do you?
• 1:20:47
  Speaker 4: In the dress of the year of the arc.
• 1:20:50
  Speaker 5: A pure heart and an upright spirit are what she
• 1:20:54
  Speaker 5: should be married in. And if that is the case,
• 1:20:58
  Speaker 5: no one is going to notice whether she has one bow.
• 1:21:01
  Speaker 7: More or less, they say, men pay a great deal
• 1:21:04
  Speaker 7: of attention to such things.
• 1:21:06
  Speaker 8: Mother Crucifixion, and we must render on to Caesar the
• 1:21:10
  Speaker 8: things which are Caesar's, and unto God the things which
• 1:21:13
  Speaker 8: are gods.
• 1:21:14
  Speaker 5: So we have philosophers. Have we in the house.
• 1:21:19
  Speaker 10: Hand me the scissors, if you will. I want to
• 1:21:21
  Speaker 10: cut off these ends.
• 1:21:22
  Speaker 2: I think now everything is ready to be put in
• 1:21:25
  Speaker 2: the trunk.
• 1:21:26
  Speaker 4: Yes, for the carriage.
• 1:21:27
  Speaker 1: We'll be waiting, Terre said, nails on the floor beside
• 1:21:31
  Speaker 1: the trunk. The nuns hand her the various articles of
• 1:21:34
  Speaker 1: the trousseau, which they remove from the benches and the table.
• 1:21:38
  Speaker 10: Here are the chemises and the lace petticoats.
• 1:21:42
  Speaker 2: Put them in the other tray so they don't get wrinkled.
• 1:21:46
  Speaker 10: Lord of Mercy, what a tuck? What bungler ran this tuck?
• 1:21:52
  Speaker 6: You must not say anything against the sister who ran its?
• 1:21:55
  Speaker 6: Sister say it would look better if it were redoubt
• 1:22:00
  Speaker 6: opened and ironed.
• 1:22:02
  Speaker 3: But it looks splendidly. Really, it does. Give it to me. Here,
• 1:22:07
  Speaker 3: let me have them. This is too much trouble for
• 1:22:11
  Speaker 3: you to take.
• 1:22:12
  Speaker 7: Have you everything, the handkerchiefs, the dressing jackets.
• 1:22:17
  Speaker 5: Here is some edging that was left over, embroidered by hand.
• 1:22:21
  Speaker 5: You had better put it in the trunk in case
• 1:22:23
  Speaker 5: of accident, and.
• 1:22:25
  Speaker 6: The patterns you might need them.
• 1:22:27
  Speaker 10: Here's the satche at, my child. It is filled with
• 1:22:30
  Speaker 10: time and lavender and has lime peel in it. It
• 1:22:35
  Speaker 10: will give a fresh scent to your clothes.
• 1:22:38
  Speaker 7: She'll have real perfumes soon enough.
• 1:22:41
  Speaker 8: Yes, expensive ones.
• 1:22:43
  Speaker 10: They may be more expensive, but they won't be any better.
• 1:22:47
  Speaker 10: I can tell you that, for these are plants that
• 1:22:50
  Speaker 10: God has made, and they smell sweetly and of a
• 1:22:54
  Speaker 10: good conscience. I have them in all the presses and
• 1:22:57
  Speaker 10: the sacristy, and it is a joy to see smell
• 1:23:00
  Speaker 10: them when you go up the steps to the altar.
• 1:23:03
  Speaker 3: I think we have everything.
• 1:23:05
  Speaker 4: Yes, everything, Now turn the key? Does it lock securely?
• 1:23:10
  Speaker 1: Teresa? Gets up and.
• 1:23:12
  Speaker 4: Hang the key around your neck with the rosaries, for
• 1:23:16
  Speaker 4: we have fastened it on a ribbon for you. Take
• 1:23:19
  Speaker 4: care you don't lose it. The lock is an English
• 1:23:22
  Speaker 4: one and not every key will open it.
• 1:23:25
  Speaker 5: Yes, mother, it will be a miracle if she has
• 1:23:28
  Speaker 5: it tomorrow.
• 1:23:29
  Speaker 2: She will settle down soon under the responsibilities of a wife.
• 1:23:33
  Speaker 6: Well, are you satisfied?
• 1:23:36
  Speaker 3: Satisfied is too little, mother, It does not express it.
• 1:23:40
  Speaker 3: I don't deserve what you have done for me.
• 1:23:42
  Speaker 5: Yes, you do. You deserve it, and you might as
• 1:23:45
  Speaker 5: well tell the truth as a falsehood. You have a
• 1:23:48
  Speaker 5: good heart. You are a sensible girl. When you said
• 1:23:52
  Speaker 5: what you did, you were thinking of your clothes. But
• 1:23:55
  Speaker 5: you need have no scruples. Everything that you take away
• 1:23:58
  Speaker 5: with you from this house, and more too, you have
• 1:24:02
  Speaker 5: earned by your labor. That is the truth, and you
• 1:24:05
  Speaker 5: know it. Maybe we have taught you here how to
• 1:24:08
  Speaker 5: sew and embroider, but you have worked for us in
• 1:24:11
  Speaker 5: the convent and outside of it. You owe us nothing. Besides,
• 1:24:16
  Speaker 5: you had two hundred and fifty positters from the doctor
• 1:24:19
  Speaker 5: to buy the material here.
• 1:24:22
  Speaker 1: Producing a paper from under her scapulary.
• 1:24:25
  Speaker 5: Is the account of the way they have been spent.
• 1:24:28
  Speaker 5: So you can see for yourself and answer for it.
• 1:24:31
  Speaker 5: Since delicacy will not permit that we should be asked
• 1:24:34
  Speaker 5: how it was used.
• 1:24:36
  Speaker 3: What do you mean why?
• 1:24:38
  Speaker 12: Mother?
• 1:24:38
  Speaker 3: Crucifixion?
• 1:24:40
  Speaker 5: That is all there is to it. You will find
• 1:24:42
  Speaker 5: the account is correct.
• 1:24:44
  Speaker 1: Teresa takes the paper, and, having folded it, puts it
• 1:24:48
  Speaker 1: in her dress. Priors to the nuns who have been working.
• 1:24:52
  Speaker 4: You may remove the table and gather up these things.
• 1:24:56
  Speaker 3: No, mother, let me do it. I will pick up everything.
• 1:25:00
  Speaker 1: The Prioress makes a sign, and all the nuns rise
• 1:25:03
  Speaker 1: and leave the room, except only herself, the Vicars, the
• 1:25:07
  Speaker 1: Mistress of Novices, and Sister Joanna of the Cross. Prioris
• 1:25:11
  Speaker 1: to Teresa.
• 1:25:13
  Speaker 4: What time do you go?
• 1:25:15
  Speaker 3: My father is coming for me at five. But Antonio
• 1:25:18
  Speaker 3: has asked me before I go to say that he
• 1:25:22
  Speaker 3: would like to see you all and thank you, and
• 1:25:25
  Speaker 3: tell you how happy and grateful he is to you
• 1:25:27
  Speaker 3: for the little girl you have brought up.
• 1:25:29
  Speaker 4: We shall be very glad to see him.
• 1:25:32
  Speaker 5: Glad or not glad, no matter, it is our obligation.
• 1:25:36
  Speaker 5: He cannot expect to carry her off like a thief
• 1:25:39
  Speaker 5: in the night and have no woman ask a question.
• 1:25:43
  Speaker 3: I will call you when he comes.
• 1:25:45
  Speaker 1: The Prioress, the Vicarus, and the Mistress of Novices go out.
• 1:25:50
  Speaker 1: Teresa and Sister Joanna of the Cross remain behind, picking
• 1:25:54
  Speaker 1: up and arranging the papers, patterns, and scraps that have
• 1:25:57
  Speaker 1: been left on the seats or about the floor. They
• 1:26:00
  Speaker 1: say nothing. But presently Teresa throws herself on her knees
• 1:26:04
  Speaker 1: before the nun sister Joanna.
• 1:26:07
  Speaker 2: Of the Cross. What do you want, my child.
• 1:26:10
  Speaker 3: Now that we are alone, bless me while there is
• 1:26:13
  Speaker 3: no one here to see, No, not no one, For
• 1:26:17
  Speaker 3: you are my mother more than all the rest.
• 1:26:19
  Speaker 1: Get up, Teresa, gets up.
• 1:26:22
  Speaker 2: Don't talk like that. We are all equal in God's house.
• 1:26:26
  Speaker 3: But in my heart you are the first. You mustn't
• 1:26:29
  Speaker 3: be angry at what I say. How can I help it?
• 1:26:33
  Speaker 3: It is my fault, though I have struggled against it
• 1:26:36
  Speaker 3: in all my life, that I have come to love you.
• 1:26:38
  Speaker 6: So.
• 1:26:39
  Speaker 2: Yes, you have struggled.
• 1:26:42
  Speaker 1: You have been wilful, then, seeking at once to excuse her.
• 1:26:47
  Speaker 2: But it was because you were strong and well. When
• 1:26:50
  Speaker 2: a child is silent and keeps to herself in a corner,
• 1:26:54
  Speaker 2: it is a sign that she is sick or thinking
• 1:26:57
  Speaker 2: of some evil.
• 1:26:58
  Speaker 3: But you, hey, mother, where do you suppose that I
• 1:27:03
  Speaker 3: came from from heaven?
• 1:27:05
  Speaker 2: My daughters, all of us have come.
• 1:27:08
  Speaker 3: Do you really think that we have all come from heaven?
• 1:27:11
  Speaker 2: At least you have come from heaven to me. You
• 1:27:15
  Speaker 2: say that I am your mother more than the rest.
• 1:27:18
  Speaker 2: I don't know it may be, but I know that
• 1:27:22
  Speaker 2: for years you have been all my happiness and joy.
• 1:27:26
  Speaker 8: Mother.
• 1:27:27
  Speaker 2: I was so glad to hear you laugh and see
• 1:27:30
  Speaker 2: you run about the cloisters. It was absurd, but I
• 1:27:34
  Speaker 2: always felt not now, for you were a grown up now.
• 1:27:38
  Speaker 2: For for years I always felt as if you must
• 1:27:41
  Speaker 2: be I myself, scampering and playing, for I was just
• 1:27:46
  Speaker 2: your age now a little more or less when you
• 1:27:50
  Speaker 2: came to the convent, and it seemed to me as
• 1:27:53
  Speaker 2: if I was a child again and had just begun
• 1:27:56
  Speaker 2: to live. You were so little, so busy, Yes you were,
• 1:28:02
  Speaker 2: but I was busy too, if you only knew. Before
• 1:28:06
  Speaker 2: I entered here. At home, in our house in the village,
• 1:28:09
  Speaker 2: I was always singing and dancing. Although we were very poor.
• 1:28:15
  Speaker 2: My mother went out every day to wash in the
• 1:28:17
  Speaker 2: river or to do housework. She had so many children,
• 1:28:22
  Speaker 2: and I was always carrying one about in my arms.
• 1:28:25
  Speaker 2: And when I entered here, as I could do thanks
• 1:28:28
  Speaker 2: to some good ladies who collected the money for my dowry,
• 1:28:32
  Speaker 2: God reward them for it. Although I had a real vocation,
• 1:28:37
  Speaker 2: I was sorrowful and homesick, thinking of my little brothers
• 1:28:40
  Speaker 2: and sisters. How I used to cry in the dark corners,
• 1:28:45
  Speaker 2: and I never dared to say a word. And then
• 1:28:48
  Speaker 2: the mother told me that if my melancholy didn't leave me,
• 1:28:52
  Speaker 2: she would be obliged to send me home. And then
• 1:28:56
  Speaker 2: you came, and I forgot everything. That is why I
• 1:29:00
  Speaker 2: say you came to me from heaven. And I don't
• 1:29:03
  Speaker 2: want you to think that I am angry or ashamed,
• 1:29:07
  Speaker 2: or that it has ever given me a moment's pain
• 1:29:10
  Speaker 2: to have loved you.
• 1:29:12
  Speaker 3: Is it the reason that you scold me?
• 1:29:14
  Speaker 2: So when have I ever scolded you?
• 1:29:18
  Speaker 4: Oh?
• 1:29:18
  Speaker 3: So many times? But no matter. I always tell Antonio,
• 1:29:23
  Speaker 3: Sister Joanna of the Cross is my mother. She is
• 1:29:26
  Speaker 3: my mother, my real mother. So now he always calls
• 1:29:29
  Speaker 3: you mother whenever he speaks of.
• 1:29:31
  Speaker 5: You, my daughter.
• 1:29:33
  Speaker 2: Will you be happy with him?
• 1:29:35
  Speaker 3: Of course I am sure I will. He is so good,
• 1:29:39
  Speaker 3: he is so happy. He says he doesn't know where
• 1:29:43
  Speaker 3: all his happiness comes from, because his father, who is
• 1:29:46
  Speaker 3: dead now, was more mournful than a willow, and his mother,
• 1:29:50
  Speaker 3: poor lady, whenever anything happened to her that was good,
• 1:29:54
  Speaker 3: burst right out crying. How do you suppose it was
• 1:29:58
  Speaker 3: that she ever managed to have such a boy? It
• 1:30:02
  Speaker 3: must be that sad mothers have happy children. How does
• 1:30:06
  Speaker 3: it seem to you?
• 1:30:08
  Speaker 13: How do I know it.
• 1:30:09
  Speaker 3: Must be that way? The first boy I have is
• 1:30:13
  Speaker 3: going to be what is the most solemnoust thing in
• 1:30:16
  Speaker 3: the world. No, the first is going to be an
• 1:30:20
  Speaker 3: architect like his father. But the second can be a
• 1:30:23
  Speaker 3: missionary and go to China if he wants to and
• 1:30:25
  Speaker 3: convert the heathen. Just think what it would be to
• 1:30:29
  Speaker 3: have a son who was a saint. I shouldn't have
• 1:30:32
  Speaker 3: to be so humble in heaven, then should I? I
• 1:30:35
  Speaker 3: should have influence. And here you are all the time,
• 1:30:39
  Speaker 3: Sister Joanna of the Cross, praying for me and preparing miracles.
• 1:30:44
  Speaker 3: So you see I have a good start already.
• 1:30:47
  Speaker 2: How you do love to talk, isn't it foolish?
• 1:30:50
  Speaker 3: Mother? Don't I listen? When you were little, didn't you
• 1:30:55
  Speaker 3: ever want to be a boy? I did. I used
• 1:30:58
  Speaker 3: to cry because I thought then that I could have
• 1:31:00
  Speaker 3: been anything I wanted to be, this that I didn't
• 1:31:04
  Speaker 3: care what it was captain, general, archbishop, yes, pope even
• 1:31:10
  Speaker 3: or something else. It used to make me mad to
• 1:31:13
  Speaker 3: think that because I was a girl, I couldn't even
• 1:31:15
  Speaker 3: be an acolyte. But now since, well, since I loved
• 1:31:21
  Speaker 3: Antonio and he loves me. I don't care. It doesn't
• 1:31:25
  Speaker 3: make any difference anymore, because if I am poor and
• 1:31:28
  Speaker 3: know nothing, he is wise and strong. And if I
• 1:31:32
  Speaker 3: am foolish and of no account, he is of oh
• 1:31:36
  Speaker 3: so much worth. And if I have to stay behind
• 1:31:40
  Speaker 3: at home and hide myself in the corner, he can
• 1:31:44
  Speaker 3: go out into the world and mount oh so high
• 1:31:48
  Speaker 3: whenever a man can go. And instead of making me envious,
• 1:31:53
  Speaker 3: it makes me so happy. Ah, Sister Joanna of the Cross,
• 1:31:59
  Speaker 3: when she truly loves a man, how humble it makes
• 1:32:02
  Speaker 3: a girl? Do you really love him so more than
• 1:32:06
  Speaker 3: life itself? And that is all too little? Maybe it's
• 1:32:10
  Speaker 3: a sin, But I can tell you, do you believe
• 1:32:14
  Speaker 3: that we will meet in heaven the persons we have
• 1:32:17
  Speaker 3: loved on earth? Because if I don't meet him there,
• 1:32:20
  Speaker 3: and I can't go on loving him always just the
• 1:32:24
  Speaker 3: same as I do now, no more than I do now.
• 1:32:28
  Speaker 2: Hush peace, You mustn't say such things. It's a sin.
• 1:32:34
  Speaker 3: I Sister Joanna of the Cross, How sweet it is
• 1:32:38
  Speaker 3: to be in love.
• 1:32:39
  Speaker 2: But hate hate? Does he love you too? So much?
• 1:32:45
  Speaker 3: Yes, he loves me how much? I don't know, But
• 1:32:49
  Speaker 3: it doesn't make any matter. What makes me happy is
• 1:32:52
  Speaker 3: that I love him. You needn't think that's sometimes, very
• 1:32:56
  Speaker 3: seldom though, I haven't been afraid that perhaps some day
• 1:33:00
  Speaker 3: he might stop loving me. It used to make me sad.
• 1:33:04
  Speaker 3: But if I had ever thought that someday I could
• 1:33:07
  Speaker 3: stop loving him, No, it would be better to die first,
• 1:33:13
  Speaker 3: For then what would be the good of.
• 1:33:15
  Speaker 2: Life, ah, my child, to continue in God's love?
• 1:33:21
  Speaker 3: Do you know how I would like to spend my life,
• 1:33:24
  Speaker 3: all of it, sitting on the ground at his feet,
• 1:33:27
  Speaker 3: looking up into his eyes, just listening to him talk.
• 1:33:32
  Speaker 3: You don't know how he can talk. He knows everything,
• 1:33:35
  Speaker 3: everything that there is to know in the world, and
• 1:33:38
  Speaker 3: he tells you such things, the things that you always
• 1:33:42
  Speaker 3: have known yourself and your heart, and you couldn't find
• 1:33:45
  Speaker 3: out how to say them. Even when he doesn't say anything,
• 1:33:49
  Speaker 3: if he should be speaking some language which you didn't understand,
• 1:33:53
  Speaker 3: it is wonderful.
• 1:33:55
  Speaker 9: His voice.
• 1:33:57
  Speaker 3: I don't know how to explain it, but it is
• 1:33:59
  Speaker 3: his voice, a voice that seems as if it had
• 1:34:03
  Speaker 3: been talking to you ever since the day you were born.
• 1:34:06
  Speaker 3: You don't hear it only with your ears, but with
• 1:34:09
  Speaker 3: your whole body. It's like the air which you see
• 1:34:13
  Speaker 3: and breathe and taste, and which smells so sweetly in
• 1:34:16
  Speaker 3: the garden beneath the tree of Paradise, Ah Mother. The
• 1:34:22
  Speaker 3: first day that he said to me, Teresa, you see
• 1:34:25
  Speaker 3: what a simple thing it was, my name, Teresa. Why,
• 1:34:30
  Speaker 3: it seemed to me as if nobody had ever called
• 1:34:32
  Speaker 3: me by my name before, as if I had never
• 1:34:36
  Speaker 3: heard it. And when he went away, I ran up
• 1:34:39
  Speaker 3: and down the street, saying to myself, Teresa, Teresa, Teresa,
• 1:34:43
  Speaker 3: under my breath, without knowing what I was doing, as
• 1:34:47
  Speaker 3: if I walked on air.
• 1:34:49
  Speaker 2: You frighten me, my child, do I why? Because you
• 1:34:55
  Speaker 2: love him so for earthly love? I mean, it seems
• 1:35:00
  Speaker 2: to me it is like a flower that we find
• 1:35:04
  Speaker 2: by the side of the road, a little brightness that
• 1:35:06
  Speaker 2: God grants us to help us pass through life, for
• 1:35:10
  Speaker 2: we are weak and frail, a drop of honey spread
• 1:35:14
  Speaker 2: upon our bread each day, which we should receive gladly,
• 1:35:17
  Speaker 2: but with trembling and keeping our hearts whole, Daughter, for
• 1:35:22
  Speaker 2: it will surely pass away.
• 1:35:24
  Speaker 3: It cannot pass away, it may, And.
• 1:35:27
  Speaker 2: Then what will be left to your soul if you
• 1:35:29
  Speaker 2: have set all on this delight and it has passed away.
• 1:35:34
  Speaker 3: You mustn't be angry with me, mother, No, look at me.
• 1:35:39
  Speaker 3: It isn't wrong. I know loving him. I he is
• 1:35:44
  Speaker 3: so good. He is so good and good it cannot
• 1:35:48
  Speaker 3: pass away.
• 1:35:50
  Speaker 2: Is he a good Christian?
• 1:35:51
  Speaker 3: He is good, sister?
• 1:35:53
  Speaker 2: But does he fear God?
• 1:35:55
  Speaker 3: One day he said to me, I love you because
• 1:35:58
  Speaker 3: you know how to pray, don't you see? And another
• 1:36:02
  Speaker 3: time I feel a devotion towards you, as towards some
• 1:36:06
  Speaker 3: holy thing. He devotion to me. And whenever I think
• 1:36:12
  Speaker 3: of that, it seems to me as if I was
• 1:36:14
  Speaker 3: just growing better, as if all at once I was
• 1:36:18
  Speaker 3: capable of everything there was to do or suffer in
• 1:36:21
  Speaker 3: the world, so as to have him always feel that way.
• 1:36:24
  Speaker 2: I hear some one in the parlor draw the curtains.
• 1:36:29
  Speaker 1: Teresa pulling the cord, draws the curtains over the windows,
• 1:36:32
  Speaker 1: shutting off the light. The fore part of the stage
• 1:36:35
  Speaker 1: remains in shadow, but the outer parlor is brightly illuminated.
• 1:36:40
  Speaker 1: Antonio has entered and may be seen through the crack
• 1:36:43
  Speaker 1: where the curtains join. He is twenty five years of age,
• 1:36:47
  Speaker 1: well built, manly and sensitive, a feature. He remains alone,
• 1:36:51
  Speaker 1: and his footsteps may be heard on the boards as
• 1:36:53
  Speaker 1: he paces nervously up and down. Teresa, going up to
• 1:36:58
  Speaker 1: the nun. Yes, it is he, Sister Joanna of the Cross,
• 1:37:04
  Speaker 1: seizing her hand.
• 1:37:06
  Speaker 2: Ah, how tall he is?
• 1:37:08
  Speaker 3: Yes, he is tall. Doesn't he look splendidly though?
• 1:37:13
  Speaker 2: Yes he does. Has he golden hair?
• 1:37:17
  Speaker 3: No, it's the light. His hair is dark brown, and
• 1:37:21
  Speaker 3: his eyes are between violet and blue. It's too bad
• 1:37:24
  Speaker 3: you can't see them. They are so beautiful When he talks,
• 1:37:29
  Speaker 3: they sparkle.
• 1:37:30
  Speaker 2: How old is he?
• 1:37:33
  Speaker 3: Just twenty five?
• 1:37:34
  Speaker 1: Antonio crosses from one side to the other and continues
• 1:37:38
  Speaker 1: to pace back and forth.
• 1:37:40
  Speaker 2: He seems to be of a very active disposition.
• 1:37:44
  Speaker 3: That is because he is impatient. Shall I speak to
• 1:37:48
  Speaker 3: him and tell him you are.
• 1:37:49
  Speaker 1: Here, sister Joanna the Cross falling back?
• 1:37:53
  Speaker 4: No, why not?
• 1:37:55
  Speaker 3: He loves you dearly.
• 1:37:57
  Speaker 1: Going up to the grill.
• 1:37:59
  Speaker 3: Good after your new to Antonio.
• 1:38:01
  Speaker 1: Antonio looking about from one side to the other.
• 1:38:05
  Speaker 13: Teresa, where are.
• 1:38:09
  Speaker 1: Here?
• 1:38:09
  Speaker 14: Boy?
• 1:38:10
  Speaker 3: Here behind the grill? It is easy to see you
• 1:38:14
  Speaker 3: are not accustomed to calling on nuns.
• 1:38:16
  Speaker 13: Can't you run back the curtain?
• 1:38:18
  Speaker 1: No?
• 1:38:19
  Speaker 3: Because I am not alone. Can't you guess who is
• 1:38:22
  Speaker 3: with me?
• 1:38:23
  Speaker 8: My mother?
• 1:38:24
  Speaker 13: Sister Joanna of the Cross.
• 1:38:26
  Speaker 1: Teresa to the nun, delighted because he has guessed it.
• 1:38:30
  Speaker 3: There do you see? To Antonio Sister Joanna of the Cross, exactly.
• 1:38:37
  Speaker 3: We have been watching you through the grill, and she
• 1:38:41
  Speaker 3: says that she thinks you are a very young, handsome man.
• 1:38:44
  Speaker 2: Goodness gracious, you mustn't pay any attention to what she says.
• 1:38:49
  Speaker 3: Don't be angry, mother, I think so myself.
• 1:38:52
  Speaker 13: You never told me that before.
• 1:38:55
  Speaker 3: That is because in here where you can't see me.
• 1:38:58
  Speaker 3: I'm not so embarrassed to tell you. Listen, we have
• 1:39:02
  Speaker 3: to send in word now that you are here. But
• 1:39:05
  Speaker 3: I want you to tell my mother something first, for
• 1:39:07
  Speaker 3: if you stand there like a blockhead without opening your mouth,
• 1:39:11
  Speaker 3: I am going to be very much ashamed. After all
• 1:39:14
  Speaker 3: this time I have spent in singing your praises.
• 1:39:17
  Speaker 13: What do you want me to tell her?
• 1:39:19
  Speaker 3: What you have in your heart?
• 1:39:21
  Speaker 13: But I don't know whether it is proper to tell
• 1:39:23
  Speaker 13: it to our religious although it is in my heart,
• 1:39:26
  Speaker 13: for I love her dearly, Ah.
• 1:39:29
  Speaker 3: I tell her that a million times a day.
• 1:39:32
  Speaker 13: Then let us tell her together two million, because I
• 1:39:36
  Speaker 13: must say to you, madam, that it is impossible to
• 1:39:39
  Speaker 13: know Teresa and not to love you.
• 1:39:41
  Speaker 3: What a treasure is this mother of mine?
• 1:39:44
  Speaker 1: For shame my child, blushing to Antonio.
• 1:39:49
  Speaker 2: I also have great affection for you, sir, for this
• 1:39:53
  Speaker 2: child has been teaching me to love you. She is
• 1:39:56
  Speaker 2: a little blind, perhaps and trusting, for that is nat
• 1:40:00
  Speaker 2: She knows nothing of the world, and we how are
• 1:40:04
  Speaker 2: we to teacher? And now you're going to take her
• 1:40:07
  Speaker 2: far away? But don't take her heart away from us, sir,
• 1:40:11
  Speaker 2: and break out when we let her hand go.
• 1:40:14
  Speaker 13: Madam, I swear to you now that I shall always
• 1:40:17
  Speaker 13: kneel in reverence before the tenderness and virtue which you
• 1:40:21
  Speaker 13: have planted in her soul.
• 1:40:24
  Speaker 3: I told you that he was very good.
• 1:40:25
  Speaker 4: Mother.
• 1:40:26
  Speaker 2: Make God make you both very happy, and make God
• 1:40:30
  Speaker 2: remain with you for his handmaid must go now and
• 1:40:34
  Speaker 2: seek the mother. But you are coming back with the sisters, yes,
• 1:40:39
  Speaker 2: I think, sir. Goodbye. I have been so happy to
• 1:40:43
  Speaker 2: know you.
• 1:40:45
  Speaker 1: Sister. Joanna of the Cross goes out greatly moved. Teresa
• 1:40:49
  Speaker 1: remains standing by the gill until the nun has disappeared
• 1:40:53
  Speaker 1: without speaking a word.
• 1:40:55
  Speaker 13: Now you can draw back the curtain, yes, a.
• 1:40:58
  Speaker 1: Little, back the curtain a little way, but it won't.
• 1:41:02
  Speaker 3: Do you any good because you won't be able to
• 1:41:05
  Speaker 3: see me. Do you really like my mother?
• 1:41:08
  Speaker 9: Do you really?
• 1:41:10
  Speaker 3: Why are you so silent? What are you thinking about?
• 1:41:14
  Speaker 13: I don't know. It is very strange. Since I have
• 1:41:18
  Speaker 13: come into this room, since I have heard your mother speak,
• 1:41:22
  Speaker 13: and have heard you behind this grille, without knowing fas
• 1:41:26
  Speaker 13: set and where you were in the dark, I have
• 1:41:29
  Speaker 13: been almost afraid to love you. But ah, how I
• 1:41:34
  Speaker 13: do love you.
• 1:41:36
  Speaker 3: I like that better, Teresa.
• 1:41:39
  Speaker 4: What is it?
• 1:41:40
  Speaker 13: Will you never forget? Will you carry with you always
• 1:41:44
  Speaker 13: wherever you go, this peace and this calm with you, Antonio, Yes,
• 1:41:50
  Speaker 13: into the world beyond these walls. For in the world
• 1:41:54
  Speaker 13: we make so much useless noise, and you I see
• 1:41:58
  Speaker 13: it now. You are the mistress of peace and of calm.
• 1:42:03
  Speaker 3: I the mistress of calm. As if I hadn't been
• 1:42:06
  Speaker 3: a little fly away all my life without an idea
• 1:42:09
  Speaker 3: in my head. Mother Crucifixion says that since I was
• 1:42:13
  Speaker 3: passed in on the wheel, there hasn't been one moment
• 1:42:16
  Speaker 3: in this house of what the rules called profound calm.
• 1:42:21
  Speaker 3: I know I don't talk much when I am with you.
• 1:42:24
  Speaker 3: We have been together such a little while, and it
• 1:42:27
  Speaker 3: has been all too short to listen to you. But
• 1:42:30
  Speaker 3: you will see when I grow bolder and am not
• 1:42:33
  Speaker 3: afraid you will have to put cotton in your ears. Then, ah, Antonio,
• 1:42:39
  Speaker 3: only think we are going to have all our lives
• 1:42:42
  Speaker 3: to be together and listen to each other, talk and
• 1:42:46
  Speaker 3: tell each other things. That is all our lives. For
• 1:42:50
  Speaker 3: you to tell me things, because I you will find
• 1:42:54
  Speaker 3: out soon enough. Tell me really, truly, Antonio, aren't you
• 1:43:00
  Speaker 3: going to be awfully ashamed to have such an ignorant wife?
• 1:43:03
  Speaker 13: Ignorant or learned?
• 1:43:06
  Speaker 3: I learned in what?
• 1:43:09
  Speaker 13: In a science which I did not know, and which.
• 1:43:12
  Speaker 3: You have thought to me you are joking.
• 1:43:15
  Speaker 13: I am in earnest until I met you, I knew nothing.
• 1:43:19
  Speaker 13: I did not even know myself. Sure you mustn't laugh.
• 1:43:24
  Speaker 13: Did it ever seem to you, Teresa, that our soul
• 1:43:28
  Speaker 13: was like a palace?
• 1:43:30
  Speaker 3: Of course it is. It is like a castle, Santa
• 1:43:33
  Speaker 3: Teresa says. So the soul is like a castle. The
• 1:43:38
  Speaker 3: interior of a castle all made of one diamond above
• 1:43:41
  Speaker 3: and below, and it has seven courts, and in the
• 1:43:44
  Speaker 3: last is stored a great treasure.
• 1:43:47
  Speaker 13: Then in the innermost chamber of my soul was stored
• 1:43:51
  Speaker 13: the love I have for you. And if you had
• 1:43:53
  Speaker 13: not come and opened the door yourself and helped me
• 1:43:57
  Speaker 13: to find it. I should have passed all my life
• 1:44:00
  Speaker 13: life in ignorance, without knowing anything was there.
• 1:44:04
  Speaker 3: Don't repeat such heresies.
• 1:44:06
  Speaker 13: Is it a heresy the lover I bear for you? No,
• 1:44:10
  Speaker 13: it is a religion, the only one for me, my girl,
• 1:44:14
  Speaker 13: Seven courts, you say, Then, with a great effort, I
• 1:44:18
  Speaker 13: had passed into the first, and I was running here
• 1:44:20
  Speaker 13: and there aimlessly. And you don't know what horrible things
• 1:44:24
  Speaker 13: I found everywhere I stumbled on. They were my own traits.
• 1:44:29
  Speaker 13: I was cold, selfish, proud, without trust of faith, without
• 1:44:34
  Speaker 13: other ambitions than material desires to pass through life easily
• 1:44:39
  Speaker 13: and well, to be the first in my own petty world,
• 1:44:43
  Speaker 13: incapable of sacrifice, of abnegation, of compassion, of disinterested love.
• 1:44:49
  Speaker 3: No, no, you were no such thing.
• 1:44:53
  Speaker 13: But I lived as if I were. What difference did
• 1:44:56
  Speaker 13: it make? But then one day I heard your voice,
• 1:44:58
  Speaker 13: and summoned by you, I again searched through the castle,
• 1:45:02
  Speaker 13: and in the other course I began to find ah
• 1:45:06
  Speaker 13: under how many cobwebs, all covered up with dust, humility
• 1:45:11
  Speaker 13: and devotion, warmth of heart, pity and faith in so
• 1:45:15
  Speaker 13: many holy things, and then I found my honor, self, respect,
• 1:45:19
  Speaker 13: and sympathy with my fellow man in which we lived,
• 1:45:23
  Speaker 13: Teresa were without it nothing else's life. And I began
• 1:45:27
  Speaker 13: to be a man when I first loved to. For
• 1:45:30
  Speaker 13: in these things you are the master, and I have
• 1:45:33
  Speaker 13: learned them all from you.
• 1:45:35
  Speaker 3: Hush, they are coming.
• 1:45:37
  Speaker 1: Teresa falls back from the grill, after first drawing the
• 1:45:40
  Speaker 1: curtains again. The nuns in single file inter silently, the
• 1:45:45
  Speaker 1: youngest first, followed it last by the Mistress of Novices,
• 1:45:49
  Speaker 1: the vicars, and the Prioress. The Prioress seats herself in
• 1:45:54
  Speaker 1: the armchair at the left of the grill, the vicars
• 1:45:57
  Speaker 1: and the Mistress of Novices in two other chairs the right.
• 1:46:01
  Speaker 1: The remaining nuns stand or are seated round about. Teresa
• 1:46:06
  Speaker 1: supports herself with her hand on the back of the
• 1:46:08
  Speaker 1: Priors's chair. Sister Joanne of the Cross approaches her and
• 1:46:13
  Speaker 1: takes her by the other hand. There is absolute silence
• 1:46:17
  Speaker 1: as the nuns enter and find their places. They look
• 1:46:21
  Speaker 1: at each other with expectant attention, and some nod and
• 1:46:24
  Speaker 1: smile among themselves. When they are seated, there follows an
• 1:46:29
  Speaker 1: interval of further silence.
• 1:46:33
  Speaker 4: Of a Maria Purissima.
• 1:46:36
  Speaker 1: Antonio, somewhat embarrassed and endeavoring vainly to penetrate the darkness
• 1:46:40
  Speaker 1: behind the grille, does not answer. The prioress, after waiting
• 1:46:45
  Speaker 1: a moment, turns her head and smiles indulgently at the community.
• 1:46:50
  Speaker 4: Good afternoon, young man, Good afternoon, madam, or madam, For
• 1:46:56
  Speaker 4: behind the mystery of the screen, it is impossible for
• 1:46:59
  Speaker 4: me to see whether I'm speaking with one or with many.
• 1:47:03
  Speaker 1: The nuns smiled quietly and discreetly.
• 1:47:07
  Speaker 4: Run back the curtain. Sister, yeses.
• 1:47:11
  Speaker 1: The sister runs back the curtain.
• 1:47:13
  Speaker 4: You are speaking with the entire community, which takes great
• 1:47:18
  Speaker 4: pleasure in knowing you.
• 1:47:20
  Speaker 6: Ladies.
• 1:47:21
  Speaker 13: The pleasure and the honor are mine, and they are
• 1:47:24
  Speaker 13: much greater than you will be ready to imagine.
• 1:47:28
  Speaker 6: Blessed us.
• 1:47:30
  Speaker 10: But isn't he a polite and polished talker?
• 1:47:33
  Speaker 11: Keep still? I want to hear what he has to say.
• 1:47:37
  Speaker 13: For a long time I have desired greatly to visit you.
• 1:47:40
  Speaker 13: Teresa knows it, and she must have told it to you.
• 1:47:44
  Speaker 4: That is true. She has, indeed, and we have greatly
• 1:47:48
  Speaker 4: appreciated your desire.
• 1:47:50
  Speaker 13: But the first time I was in this place it
• 1:47:53
  Speaker 13: was advent and the second it was lent, and both
• 1:47:57
  Speaker 13: times Teresa informed me that it was impossible for me
• 1:48:00
  Speaker 13: to see you.
• 1:48:01
  Speaker 5: Clearly, in seasons of penitence we receive no visitors.
• 1:48:06
  Speaker 13: But now it is made and past Easter time.
• 1:48:10
  Speaker 6: How well acquainted he is with the calendar. Surely you
• 1:48:13
  Speaker 6: must be very devout, sir, I am, madam, very.
• 1:48:18
  Speaker 13: But chiefly in the worship of certain saints who as
• 1:48:21
  Speaker 13: yet are not on the altars.
• 1:48:23
  Speaker 10: What a nice compliment saints?
• 1:48:26
  Speaker 6: Did he say?
• 1:48:29
  Speaker 10: He is a polished talker.
• 1:48:31
  Speaker 13: Ladies, After one hundred years, they will be lighting candles
• 1:48:35
  Speaker 13: to you and invoking you in prayers and in gratitude.
• 1:48:39
  Speaker 13: They will be bringing you thank offerings of crutches and
• 1:48:42
  Speaker 13: wooden legs.
• 1:48:45
  Speaker 11: Does he think we are going to be the patrons
• 1:48:48
  Speaker 11: of rheumatism.
• 1:48:49
  Speaker 6: After one hundred years you are giving us a century
• 1:48:52
  Speaker 6: of purgatory?
• 1:48:54
  Speaker 13: No, Madam, by all that is holy, I am giving
• 1:48:58
  Speaker 13: you a century of life and entrance thereafter directly into
• 1:49:03
  Speaker 13: the choir of Seraphim.
• 1:49:05
  Speaker 4: I fear you speak frivolously, Senor don Antonio, Madam.
• 1:49:10
  Speaker 13: I was never more earnest in my life. Whenever I
• 1:49:13
  Speaker 13: think of death. You have no idea of the peace
• 1:49:16
  Speaker 13: which enters my soul. I remember how many saintly white
• 1:49:20
  Speaker 13: hands will be stretched down to me to help me
• 1:49:23
  Speaker 13: into paradise. For I suppose that you will be able
• 1:49:26
  Speaker 13: to exercise a little influence on behalf of one of
• 1:49:29
  Speaker 13: the family.
• 1:49:31
  Speaker 9: One of the family.
• 1:49:33
  Speaker 5: Certainly, we are all God's children.
• 1:49:37
  Speaker 13: But I shall be so in a double sense, first
• 1:49:40
  Speaker 13: in my own birthright, and then as your son in law,
• 1:49:44
  Speaker 13: who are his brides.
• 1:49:46
  Speaker 5: Ah, it is not meet to jest about holy things.
• 1:49:50
  Speaker 13: Madame, you right, and you will pardon me all the
• 1:49:53
  Speaker 13: inconsequences which I have said, for I swear to you
• 1:49:57
  Speaker 13: that they have been nothing but nervousness and fear.
• 1:50:01
  Speaker 6: You are not afraid of us.
• 1:50:02
  Speaker 13: I am, Madam very because of the respect and admiration
• 1:50:07
  Speaker 13: in which I hold you all. I came here more
• 1:50:10
  Speaker 13: disturbed than I ever have been before in my whole life.
• 1:50:14
  Speaker 13: I do not know whether I should thank you, or
• 1:50:17
  Speaker 13: whether I should beg your.
• 1:50:18
  Speaker 4: Pardon, beg our pardon.
• 1:50:21
  Speaker 13: Yes, because I fear that I am not worthy of
• 1:50:24
  Speaker 13: the treasure which you are entrusting to me.
• 1:50:27
  Speaker 4: We know already through the doctor that you are an
• 1:50:30
  Speaker 4: honorable young man, and the.
• 1:50:33
  Speaker 6: Love which our daughter bears you is our guarantee. Surely
• 1:50:38
  Speaker 6: the Lord would not permit his child brought up in
• 1:50:41
  Speaker 6: his fear, to throw herself away upon an evil man.
• 1:50:45
  Speaker 13: I am not evil, no, but I am a man.
• 1:50:48
  Speaker 13: And you, ladies, with all the great piety of your souls,
• 1:50:52
  Speaker 13: have been nurturing a flower for the skies. When I
• 1:50:56
  Speaker 13: first knew her, my heart whispered to me that I
• 1:50:59
  Speaker 13: had met a saint. She was a miracle. When I
• 1:51:02
  Speaker 13: first dared to speak to her, there came over me
• 1:51:06
  Speaker 13: a fear and a trembling that were out of the
• 1:51:09
  Speaker 13: course of nature. And when I told her that I
• 1:51:12
  Speaker 13: loved her, my heart stopped and bade me to fall
• 1:51:16
  Speaker 13: on my knees. And now that I have come here
• 1:51:19
  Speaker 13: to beg my happiness of you, I don't know what
• 1:51:22
  Speaker 13: I can promise you in token of my gratitude, nor
• 1:51:26
  Speaker 13: how I can give you thanks enough for the great honor.
• 1:51:30
  Speaker 6: Which you do me.
• 1:51:32
  Speaker 5: It may be you are speaking more truly than you think.
• 1:51:35
  Speaker 5: Signor don Antonio, Why mother, no, let me speak? For
• 1:51:41
  Speaker 5: he has said, well, the girl is not one of
• 1:51:44
  Speaker 5: those worldly creatures to take to their husband's a great
• 1:51:47
  Speaker 5: store of physical beauty. That is certain. You cannot call
• 1:51:51
  Speaker 5: her ugly, but it is the most that can be said.
• 1:51:55
  Speaker 5: Nor does she bring with her any dour. She is
• 1:51:58
  Speaker 5: poorer than the poor, but she carries in her heart
• 1:52:01
  Speaker 5: a treasure, the only one which we have been able
• 1:52:04
  Speaker 5: to give her, which is more priceless than silver or gold,
• 1:52:08
  Speaker 5: And that is the fear of God. For this, sir,
• 1:52:11
  Speaker 5: you must be answerable to us, And we ask you
• 1:52:15
  Speaker 5: your word now, that you will always respect it in
• 1:52:18
  Speaker 5: her and in her children, if you should have any
• 1:52:21
  Speaker 5: If it should be God's holy.
• 1:52:23
  Speaker 13: Will, Theresa shall always be the absolute mistress of her
• 1:52:27
  Speaker 13: conscience and of my house and my children shall ever
• 1:52:31
  Speaker 13: be that which she desires. Appledge my word.
• 1:52:35
  Speaker 4: You will never have reason to regret it, for she
• 1:52:38
  Speaker 4: is a good and prudent girl.
• 1:52:42
  Speaker 5: And not hypocritical. For although as you have said, we
• 1:52:45
  Speaker 5: have nurtured her for disguise, we have never permitted ourselves
• 1:52:49
  Speaker 5: to believe that she was to reach them through the cloister.
• 1:52:53
  Speaker 8: Do you mean to take her very far away?
• 1:52:56
  Speaker 13: Yes, madam. That is to say, there is no longer
• 1:52:59
  Speaker 13: in the world world, either far or near, with Thel.
• 1:53:02
  Speaker 13: Next week I'm going to America as the resident director
• 1:53:07
  Speaker 13: of a firm of architects.
• 1:53:09
  Speaker 4: Yes, we know already.
• 1:53:12
  Speaker 13: That is the reason for this haste. I do not
• 1:53:14
  Speaker 13: wish to go along.
• 1:53:16
  Speaker 11: Aren't you afraid the child would be seasick? They say,
• 1:53:20
  Speaker 11: you do get a terrible shaking up upon the sea.
• 1:53:23
  Speaker 8: You must promise us to take good care of her.
• 1:53:27
  Speaker 10: If she gets overheated. Never let her drink cold water.
• 1:53:31
  Speaker 10: She is very pickheaded about that, But.
• 1:53:34
  Speaker 7: You mustn't forget that she is accustomed to cold baths.
• 1:53:37
  Speaker 10: If she takes cold or gets a cough, make her
• 1:53:40
  Speaker 10: drink a glass of hot milk with a teaspoon of
• 1:53:43
  Speaker 10: hot rum in it, with plenty of sugar, for that's
• 1:53:46
  Speaker 10: the only thing that will make her sweat.
• 1:53:48
  Speaker 3: I think perhaps I had better attend to these matters myself.
• 1:53:52
  Speaker 10: Sister, Yes, you'd be a pretty one to attend to them.
• 1:53:57
  Speaker 10: Don't you mind what she says, Senor dan Antonio, For
• 1:54:00
  Speaker 10: she is spoiled utterly. If you don't give her medicines
• 1:54:04
  Speaker 10: and force the spoon down her throat, she might be dying,
• 1:54:07
  Speaker 10: for all you'd know. But she'd never ask for them herself.
• 1:54:11
  Speaker 4: We had better not confuse him with too many recommendations.
• 1:54:15
  Speaker 4: Surely he knows the more important precautions already.
• 1:54:19
  Speaker 1: Until nils smiling.
• 1:54:21
  Speaker 13: Perhaps it would be better if you wrote them out
• 1:54:24
  Speaker 13: for me on a piece of paper.
• 1:54:26
  Speaker 11: A good idea. If we began, we'll does he think
• 1:54:30
  Speaker 11: we'd leave off?
• 1:54:32
  Speaker 9: How many days will you be on the ship?
• 1:54:34
  Speaker 13: Two weeks?
• 1:54:35
  Speaker 7: Mercy? What an age? Suppose there should be a storm, It.
• 1:54:40
  Speaker 6: Will be at least two weeks before we can get
• 1:54:43
  Speaker 6: letters back.
• 1:54:45
  Speaker 13: We will telegraph when we arrive, and we will send
• 1:54:48
  Speaker 13: you a message from the middle of the ocean, so
• 1:54:50
  Speaker 13: that you will hear from us the same day, Mother.
• 1:54:53
  Speaker 10: Of God, Can they send messages now from the middle
• 1:54:57
  Speaker 10: of the ocean? How do the words come.
• 1:55:00
  Speaker 3: Flying through the air like birds?
• 1:55:03
  Speaker 10: What will men invent next? When your handmaid was in
• 1:55:06
  Speaker 10: the world, they came by a wire, and yet it
• 1:55:09
  Speaker 10: seemed the work of the devil.
• 1:55:11
  Speaker 13: I should not advise you, madam, to believe that the
• 1:55:14
  Speaker 13: devil is ever very far away from these inventions.
• 1:55:19
  Speaker 10: Whether he is or not. When the telegram comes, it
• 1:55:22
  Speaker 10: will be safest to sprinkle it with holy water.
• 1:55:25
  Speaker 4: Ah, sister Innes, you are so simple. Don't you see
• 1:55:29
  Speaker 4: that the young man is only joking.
• 1:55:32
  Speaker 5: It is five o'clock, the hour we were to expect
• 1:55:35
  Speaker 5: your father.
• 1:55:36
  Speaker 13: I do not wish to molest you. Father.
• 1:55:39
  Speaker 4: You do not molest us, But we must close the
• 1:55:42
  Speaker 4: parlor at five.
• 1:55:44
  Speaker 13: You will pardon me if I commit a terrible breach
• 1:55:46
  Speaker 13: of etiquette. But I should like to ask you one
• 1:55:49
  Speaker 13: favor before I.
• 1:55:50
  Speaker 4: Go, if it is in our power to grunt.
• 1:55:54
  Speaker 13: Although as it seems, you have run back a curtain,
• 1:55:57
  Speaker 13: yet the mystery of the screen still remain a mystery
• 1:56:00
  Speaker 13: to me, A poor sinner, inscrutable as before, And I
• 1:56:05
  Speaker 13: should be sorry to go away without having seen you
• 1:56:08
  Speaker 13: face to face. Is it too much to ask for us?
• 1:56:12
  Speaker 4: This is a day of giving. Draw back the curtains, Teresa.
• 1:56:17
  Speaker 1: Teresa draws back the curtain from one window, Anne that
• 1:56:21
  Speaker 1: from the other, lighting up the room, Antonio bowing.
• 1:56:26
  Speaker 5: Ladies, well, how does the vision appear to you?
• 1:56:31
  Speaker 13: I shall never forget it as long as I live.
• 1:56:35
  Speaker 4: Then, may God go with you, and where you live
• 1:56:38
  Speaker 4: a thousand years.
• 1:56:40
  Speaker 1: Taking Teresa by the hand, here.
• 1:56:44
  Speaker 4: Is her hand. See we give her to you with
• 1:56:47
  Speaker 4: a great love, and may you make her happy.
• 1:56:51
  Speaker 13: I answer for her happiness with my life.
• 1:56:54
  Speaker 4: And may God go with you.
• 1:56:57
  Speaker 6: Teresa will give you from us two scapularies. The remembrances
• 1:57:02
  Speaker 6: of a nun they're not worth anything, but they have
• 1:57:06
  Speaker 6: lain beside the reliquary of our father, the Blessed Saint Dominic.
• 1:57:11
  Speaker 6: Keep them in memory of this day.
• 1:57:14
  Speaker 13: I shall treasure them, ladies, from this hour, and I
• 1:57:18
  Speaker 13: pray you remember me always in your prayers.
• 1:57:22
  Speaker 5: And upon your part, do not forget to pray with
• 1:57:26
  Speaker 5: them from time to time. For although it lies within
• 1:57:29
  Speaker 5: the province of everyone to help our souls along the
• 1:57:32
  Speaker 5: way to heaven, yet we must take the first steps
• 1:57:35
  Speaker 5: ourselves and make God go with you.
• 1:57:39
  Speaker 6: God, you ladies.
• 1:57:42
  Speaker 1: He retires and disappears. A nun draws the curtain over
• 1:57:47
  Speaker 1: the grill, then a moment's silence.
• 1:57:51
  Speaker 2: Oh Lord, good Lord.
• 1:57:58
  Speaker 1: The bell by the door rings twice.
• 1:58:00
  Speaker 5: I thought so, your father.
• 1:58:03
  Speaker 1: Teresa stands in the midst of the group of nuns, bewildered,
• 1:58:06
  Speaker 1: looking from one to the other. Greatly moved, Sister Tonara
• 1:58:11
  Speaker 1: goes to open the.
• 1:58:12
  Speaker 4: Door, ask him to come in.
• 1:58:15
  Speaker 1: The doctor enters on the arm of Sister Tona. He
• 1:58:19
  Speaker 1: is now very old, but neither decrepit nor cast down.
• 1:58:24
  Speaker 12: Good afternoon, ladies, Good afternoon.
• 1:58:28
  Speaker 1: Daughter Teresa, kissing his.
• 1:58:31
  Speaker 3: Hand, Good afternoon, Father.
• 1:58:34
  Speaker 12: The whole assembly, the parting eh well, did you see
• 1:58:39
  Speaker 12: the young man?
• 1:58:41
  Speaker 1: The nuns do not answer.
• 1:58:44
  Speaker 12: A fine fellow, isn't he? He is waiting outside. We
• 1:58:50
  Speaker 12: have an hour in the coach before we arrive at
• 1:58:53
  Speaker 12: the station, so you had better get ready now.
• 1:58:56
  Speaker 1: Daughter Teresa goes out with sister Joanna of the crow.
• 1:59:00
  Speaker 4: Us.
• 1:59:01
  Speaker 12: Ah, the trunk, good, carry it to the door. The
• 1:59:06
  Speaker 12: boys outside will take care of it.
• 1:59:09
  Speaker 1: Two nuns lift the trunk and carried it out by
• 1:59:12
  Speaker 1: the door on the right.
• 1:59:14
  Speaker 14: There.
• 1:59:14
  Speaker 12: That is done.
• 1:59:16
  Speaker 1: He seats himself in the priors's chair.
• 1:59:19
  Speaker 12: Well, how are we today?
• 1:59:23
  Speaker 4: You see, doctor?
• 1:59:25
  Speaker 6: Who would have ever believed it? Eighteen years ago?
• 1:59:29
  Speaker 12: Eighteen years We are growing old, mother, We are growing old.
• 1:59:38
  Speaker 4: That is not the worst of it.
• 1:59:40
  Speaker 10: How old are you now? Doctor?
• 1:59:42
  Speaker 13: Hmmm?
• 1:59:44
  Speaker 12: Seventy eight? Sister?
• 1:59:46
  Speaker 10: No one would ever think it?
• 1:59:48
  Speaker 1: Doctor, attempting a witticism so as to cheer up the nuns.
• 1:59:53
  Speaker 12: That is because I am preserved and sanctity like a
• 1:59:57
  Speaker 12: fly in thick syrup.
• 1:59:59
  Speaker 1: But none of the nuns laugh.
• 2:00:02
  Speaker 12: Ah, a little mournful today, Eh, what.
• 2:00:06
  Speaker 7: Else did you expect?
• 2:00:08
  Speaker 9: She is not even going to be married in our chapel.
• 2:00:11
  Speaker 12: No, his mother is old and sick, and naturally she
• 2:00:16
  Speaker 12: wants him to be with her, so they must be
• 2:00:19
  Speaker 12: married in her house.
• 2:00:21
  Speaker 4: Naturally, poor woman.
• 2:00:24
  Speaker 1: A pause.
• 2:00:27
  Speaker 6: She's going so far away.
• 2:00:30
  Speaker 12: But she will come back, mother, she will come back.
• 2:00:34
  Speaker 4: She knows nothing of the world.
• 2:00:38
  Speaker 12: There is no cause to be alarmed. He is an
• 2:00:41
  Speaker 12: honorable man.
• 2:00:43
  Speaker 5: Yes, he seems to be one.
• 2:00:46
  Speaker 1: Teresa and sister of Joanna of the Cross, we enter.
• 2:00:49
  Speaker 1: It is plain that they have both been crying. Teresa
• 2:00:53
  Speaker 1: waid Amanthia, and with her coat on, carries a shawl
• 2:00:56
  Speaker 1: over her arm for use as a rap on the voyage.
• 2:01:01
  Speaker 1: She stops in the middle of the room and stands still,
• 2:01:04
  Speaker 1: not daring to say good bye.
• 2:01:07
  Speaker 12: Well, are we ready now?
• 2:01:11
  Speaker 11: Yes?
• 2:01:12
  Speaker 12: Now, then say good bye. It is late. We must
• 2:01:18
  Speaker 12: be going, daughter.
• 2:01:20
  Speaker 4: Yes, you must not delay.
• 2:01:22
  Speaker 1: Teresa, throwing herself on her knees before the prioress and
• 2:01:26
  Speaker 1: kissing her scapular.
• 2:01:28
  Speaker 3: Mother Rice, my daughter, Rice, bless me, Mother, bless me.
• 2:01:35
  Speaker 4: May God bless you so Rice.
• 2:01:38
  Speaker 1: As Teresa rises, the nun embraces her mother.
• 2:01:43
  Speaker 3: I don't know what to say to you. I don't
• 2:01:46
  Speaker 3: know how to leave you. But you must forgive me
• 2:01:49
  Speaker 3: for all the wrong I have ever done in these years.
• 2:01:53
  Speaker 3: I have been foolish wilful. I have made so much
• 2:01:56
  Speaker 3: trouble for you all. You must forgive me. I would
• 2:02:01
  Speaker 3: like to do something great, something splendid for you all.
• 2:02:05
  Speaker 3: But but may God reward you. May God reward you,
• 2:02:10
  Speaker 3: God reward you.
• 2:02:12
  Speaker 4: See bursts into tears, My daughter, Come, You must not cry.
• 2:02:18
  Speaker 4: You must not allow yourself to be afflicted.
• 2:02:20
  Speaker 3: So I'm not afflicted, mother, But it's mother. I can
• 2:02:27
  Speaker 3: never forget you. You must pray for me, pray for me,
• 2:02:32
  Speaker 3: and you must never forget me.
• 2:02:34
  Speaker 4: Ah, no, my child, never. We will pray God to
• 2:02:38
  Speaker 4: help you and to be with you, and you must
• 2:02:40
  Speaker 4: pray to Him for guidance and for counsel orways whenever
• 2:02:45
  Speaker 4: you are troubled or perplexed in anything. For the liberty
• 2:02:49
  Speaker 4: which they enjoy in the world is like a sword
• 2:02:52
  Speaker 4: in the hands of a child, and life at best
• 2:02:55
  Speaker 4: is hard and bitter. Oftentimes, be thankful that heart is
• 2:03:00
  Speaker 4: well stilled to resist all the temptations that may come.
• 2:03:05
  Speaker 6: Is it not, my daughter?
• 2:03:07
  Speaker 3: It is mother?
• 2:03:08
  Speaker 4: Will you promise always to be reverent and good?
• 2:03:12
  Speaker 2: Yes?
• 2:03:13
  Speaker 5: Yes, Mother, Remember that your obligation is greater than that
• 2:03:17
  Speaker 5: of others, because you have come forth from God's own house.
• 2:03:22
  Speaker 4: Yes, yes, mother, Remember all the blessings He has showered
• 2:03:26
  Speaker 4: upon you from the cradle. Remember that your whole life
• 2:03:30
  Speaker 4: has been as a miracle. That you have lived here
• 2:03:34
  Speaker 4: as few have ever lived. That you have been brought
• 2:03:37
  Speaker 4: up as few have ever been brought up, like the
• 2:03:40
  Speaker 4: Holy Virtuine herself in the very temple of the Lord.
• 2:03:45
  Speaker 6: As he was to the Evangelist. So God has been
• 2:03:50
  Speaker 6: to you a father and a mother, more than to
• 2:03:53
  Speaker 6: any other living thing.
• 2:03:55
  Speaker 4: Remember that you are the rose of his garden and
• 2:03:59
  Speaker 4: the grain of incense upon his altar.
• 2:04:03
  Speaker 3: Yes, Mother, Yes I will. I will remember all.
• 2:04:08
  Speaker 6: All all, and do not forget each day to make
• 2:04:12
  Speaker 6: an examination of your soul.
• 2:04:14
  Speaker 3: No, mother, and right often, Yes, Mother, it is time
• 2:04:20
  Speaker 3: to go.
• 2:04:21
  Speaker 1: Teresa, Teresa, throwing herself suddenly into his arms.
• 2:04:25
  Speaker 3: Oh, Father, promise me never to leave them, never abandon.
• 2:04:30
  Speaker 12: Them, child of my heart. Ah, may they never abandon me,
• 2:04:38
  Speaker 12: For this is my house. For more than forty years,
• 2:04:43
  Speaker 12: I have been coming here day by day, hour by hour,
• 2:04:49
  Speaker 12: and now there is nobody within these walls who is
• 2:04:53
  Speaker 12: older than I. I have no children. I have had
• 2:04:59
  Speaker 12: my love, yes, a moment's flame, but it was so
• 2:05:04
  Speaker 12: long ago. I have forgotten them and These sisters who
• 2:05:10
  Speaker 12: have been mothers to you, have been daughters to me,
• 2:05:15
  Speaker 12: And now when I come, they no longer even cover
• 2:05:19
  Speaker 12: their faces before me. Why should they? It seems to
• 2:05:25
  Speaker 12: me as if I had seen them born and in
• 2:05:29
  Speaker 12: this house I should like to die, so that they
• 2:05:33
  Speaker 12: might close my eyes and say a prayer for me
• 2:05:36
  Speaker 12: when life itself has closed?
• 2:05:39
  Speaker 6: Who is thinking of dying? Doctor?
• 2:05:42
  Speaker 1: It is time to go, Teresa, looking from one to.
• 2:05:46
  Speaker 3: The other, aren't you come to embrace me?
• 2:05:50
  Speaker 1: The nuns, after hesitating and glancing a moment doubtfully at
• 2:05:54
  Speaker 1: the Mother Priars, embraced Teresa in turn in perfect silence.
• 2:06:00
  Speaker 1: Only Sister Joanna of the Cross, taking her into her arms, says,
• 2:06:05
  Speaker 1: my child.
• 2:06:06
  Speaker 4: May you find what you seek in the world. Daughter,
• 2:06:10
  Speaker 4: For so we hope and so we pray to God.
• 2:06:14
  Speaker 4: But if it should not be so, remember this is
• 2:06:17
  Speaker 4: your convent.
• 2:06:20
  Speaker 12: Thanks thanks sobbing, Come daughter.
• 2:06:26
  Speaker 1: Come. The doctor and Teresa go to the door, but
• 2:06:30
  Speaker 1: Teresa turns when she reaches the threshold and embraces Sister
• 2:06:34
  Speaker 1: Joanna of the Cross passionately. Then she disappears. Sister Joanna
• 2:06:41
  Speaker 1: the Cross rests her head against the grill, her back
• 2:06:44
  Speaker 1: to the others. And weeps silently. A pause. The bells
• 2:06:50
  Speaker 1: of the coach are heard outside as it drives away.
• 2:06:53
  Speaker 6: They are going now.
• 2:06:55
  Speaker 1: The chapel bell rings, summoning the nuns to choire.
• 2:06:59
  Speaker 4: The summons to acquire con sisters, let us go there,
• 2:07:05
  Speaker 4: All make ready to go out sadly.
• 2:07:08
  Speaker 1: The Vicarous, sensing the situation to her mind demoralizing, feels
• 2:07:13
  Speaker 1: it to be her duty to provide a remedy. She
• 2:07:16
  Speaker 1: too is greatly moved, but making a supreme effort to
• 2:07:19
  Speaker 1: control herself, says in a voice which she in vain
• 2:07:23
  Speaker 1: endeavors to make appear calm, but which is choked with
• 2:07:26
  Speaker 1: utterance by tears.
• 2:07:29
  Speaker 5: One moment. I have observed of late that some in
• 2:07:34
  Speaker 5: the prayer have not been marking sufficiently the pauses in
• 2:07:38
  Speaker 5: the middle of the lines, while on the other hand,
• 2:07:41
  Speaker 5: they drag out the last words interminably. Be careful of
• 2:07:45
  Speaker 5: this for your reverences. Know that the beauty of the
• 2:07:48
  Speaker 5: office lies in rightly marking the pauses and in avoiding
• 2:07:52
  Speaker 5: undue emphasis on the end of the phrase let us
• 2:07:57
  Speaker 5: go there.
• 2:07:58
  Speaker 1: The nuns file outlaw Sister Joanna of the Cross, unnoticed,
• 2:08:03
  Speaker 1: remains alone. With a cry. She falls upon her knees
• 2:08:07
  Speaker 1: beside an empty chair curtain end of BacT two, End
• 2:08:15
  Speaker 1: of the Cradle song by Grigoroio Martinez Sierra, translated by
• 2:08:20
  Speaker 1: John Garrett under Hill,