Federico García
Lorca
The House of Bernarda Alba
(La
casa de Bernarda Alba)
1936
A
drama of women in the villages of
Act
II
A. S. Kline © 2007 All Rights Reserved
This work may be freely reproduced, stored, and transmitted, electronically or otherwise, for any non-commercial purpose. Permission to perform this version of the play, on stage or film, by amateur or professional companies, and for commercial purposes, should be requested from the translator,
(The bright white interior of
Bernarda’s house. The doors on the left lead to the bedrooms.
Bernarda’s daughters are seated on low chairs, sewing.
ANGUSTIAS: I’ve finished cutting the third sheet.
MARTIRIO: It’s for Amelia.
ANGUSTIAS: (Drily) No.
AMELIA: She’s lying down.
LA PONCIA: She’s got something. She’s restless, quivering,
frightened, as if she had a lizard between her breasts.
MARTIRIO: She’s got nothing more than what we all have.
ANGUSTIAS: I’m fine, and anyone who doesn’t like it can
go to the devil.
ANGUSTIAS: Fortunately, I’ll soon be free of this hell.
MARTIRIO: Let’s change the subject!
ANGUSTIAS: And, besides, better an ounce of gold in
one’s coffer than a pair of dark eyes in one’s head!
AMELIA: (To La Poncia) Open the door to the courtyard, and see if we
can have a little fresh air in here.
(La Poncia
does so.)
MARTIRIO: All last night I couldn’t sleep with the
heat.
AMELIA: Nor I!
MARTIRIO: I got out of bed to cool myself. There was a
black storm cloud and even a few drops of rain.
LA PONCIA: It was one in the morning, and the earth was
still fiery. I got out of bed too. Angustias was at the window with Pepe.
ANGUSTIAS:
AMELIA: He left at about half past one.
ANGUSTIAS: Yes. How do you know that?
AMELIA: I heard his cough, and the hooves of his
mare.
LA PONCIA: But I heard him leaving at four!
ANGUSTIAS: Then it wasn’t him!
LA PONCIA: I’m sure it was!
AMELIA: It seemed to me too…
(Pause.)
LA PONCIA: Listen, Angustias, what did he say to you the
first time he came to your window?
ANGUSTIAS: Nothing. What would he say? Trivial things.
MARTIRIO: What’s truly odd is that two people who don’t
know each other should suddenly meet at an open window and become engaged.
ANGUSTIAS: I don’t find it astonishing.
AMELIA: It would make me feel strange.
ANGUSTIAS: No it wouldn’t, because when a man comes to
your window he already knows from the coming and going, from the give and take,
that the answer can only be yes.
MARTIRIO: Fine, but he still has to ask.
ANGUSTIAS: Of course!
AMELIA: (Curious)
So, what did he say?
ANGUSTIAS: Well, nothing much. ‘You know I’m after you,
that I need a good woman, a modest one, and that it’s you if you’ll agree.’
AMELIA: Things like that embarrass me!
ANGUSTIAS: Me too, but you have to suffer them!
LA PONCIA: And did he say anything else?
ANGUSTIAS: Yes, he never stopped talking.
MARTIRIO: And you?
ANGUSTIAS: I couldn’t speak. My heart almost leapt out
of my mouth. It was the first time I’d been alone at night with a man.
ANGUSTIAS: His figure’s not bad.
LA PONCIA: That’s how it is between people who have a
little experience, who know how to speak and wave their hands about…The first
time my husband Evaristo el Colorín
came to my window…ha, ha, ha!
AMELIA: What happened?
LA PONCIA: It was quite dark. I saw him there and as he
approached he said: ‘Good evening.’ ‘Good evening,’ I said in reply, and then
we were silent for half an hour or more. Sweat bathed my whole body. Then Evaristo came closer, closer, as if he wanted to squeeze
through the bars, and said in a whisper, ‘Come here, let me feel you!’
(They all laugh. Amelia rises,
runs to the door, and peers out.)
AMELIA: Ay! I thought mother was coming.
AMELIA: Shush…she’ll hear us!
LA PONCIA: Afterwards he behaved very well. Instead of
chasing after other things he bred linnets till the day of his death. It’s good
for you single women to know that a fortnight after the wedding a man forgoes
bed for the table, and later on the table for the tavern. And the woman who
can’t accept it will waste away, crying in a corner.
AMELIA: You accepted it.
LA PONCIA: I could handle him!
MARTIRIO: Is it true you struck him on occasions?
LA PONCIA: Yes, and nearly blinded him.
LA PONCIA: I’m of your mother’s school. One day he said
something to me, who knows what, and I slaughtered all his linnets with the
rolling pin. (They laugh.)
AMELIA: Adela. (Pause.)
LA PONCIA: The child is ill!
MARTIRIO: Of course, she barely sleeps!
LA PONCIA: What does she do instead?
MARTIRIO: How do I know what she does!
LA PONCIA: You know better than I, you only have a wall
between you.
ANGUSTIAS: Envy is eating her.
AMELIA: Don’t exaggerate things.
ANGUSTIAS: I can see it in her eyes. She’s beginning to
look like a madwoman.
MARTIRIO: Don’t talk about madness. This is the one
place where such words should not be spoken.
(
ADELA: I felt unwell.
MARTIRIO: (Pointedly)
Didn’t you sleep well last night?
ADELA: Yes.
MARTIRIO: Then?
ADELA: (Angrily)
Leave me alone! Sleeping or waking, it’s nobody’s
affair but mine! I’ll do as I want with my own body!
MARTIRIO: I’m merely concerned for you!
ADELA: Concerned, or inquisitive. Weren’t you sewing
just now? Well carry on. I wish I were invisible, so as to walk through these
rooms without you forever asking where I’m going!
SERVANT: (Entering)
Bernarda is asking for you. The man with the lace is here.
(They exit, and as they do so Martirio
looks fixedly at Adela.)
ADELA: Stop staring at me! If you want you can have
my eyes, that are hardly used, and my shoulders to bear that hump you carry, but
turn your head away when I pass.
(Martirio exits.)
LA PONCIA: Adela, she’s your
sister, and the one that loves you most!
ADELA: She follows me everywhere. She even looks
into my room to see if I’m asleep. She doesn’t let me breathe. And always it’s:
‘What a shame about that pretty face! What a shame about that body, that no one
will ever see!’ It’s not so! My body will be for whomever I want!
LA PONCIA: (Pointedly
in a low voice) For Pepe el Romano, is that it?
ADELA: (Startled)
What do you mean?
LA PONCIA: What I say, Adela!
ADELA: Be silent!
LA PONCIA: (Loudly)
Did you think I hadn’t noticed?
ADELA: Lower your voice!
LA PONCIA: Suppress such thoughts!
ADELA: What do you know about it?
LA PONCIA: Old women can see through walls. Where do you
go at night when you get up?
ADELA: You should have your eyes put out!
LA PONCIA: My hands are as full of eyes as my head when
it comes to this business. For all my thinking about it I don’t known what
you’re up to. Why else were you standing there half-naked at the window with
the light on when Pepe was here the second time he
came to talk with your sister?
ADELA: That’s not true!
LA PONCIA: Don’t be such a child! Let your sister be,
and if it’s Pepe el Romano you want, reconcile
yourself. (Adela weeps.) Besides, who says you can’t
marry him? Your sister Angustias is not well. She won’t survive her first
child. She’s narrow-waisted and old, and from my
experience I’d say she’ll die. Then Pepe will do what
all the widowers here do: he’ll marry the youngest and prettiest, and that’s
you. Cling to that hope and forget him for now. Do what you like, but don’t act
against the law of God.
ADELA: Be silent!
LA PONCIA: I won’t be silent!
ADELA: Mind your own business, you nosy traitor!
LA PONCIA: I shall be your shadow!
ADELA: Instead of cleaning the house and praying for
the dead when you go to bed, you go around like an old sow poking around in men
and women’s business, so you can slobber over it.
LA PONCIA: I keep watch, so that people won’t spit when
they pass this door!
ADELA: What vast affection you suddenly feel for my
sister!
LA PONCIA: I’ve no loyalty to any of you, but I want to
live in a decent house. I don’t want my old age to be tarnished.
ADELA: Your advice is useless. It’s too late. I’d
not just ignore you, but also my mother, in order to quench this fire that licks
me from head to foot. What can you say of me? That I lock myself in my room and
won’t open the door? That I don’t sleep? I’m cleverer than you. See if you can
catch this hare in your hands.
LA PONCIA: Don’t defy me, Adela,
don’t defy me! Because I can shout out loud, light all the lamps, and set the
bells ringing.
ADELA: Bring four thousand yellow flares, and set
them up on the walls of the stable-yard. No one can escape the fact that what
is to happen will happen.
LA PONCIA: You want the man as much as that!
ADELA: Yes, as much as that! Gazing into his eyes I feel
as if I’m slowly drinking his blood.
LA PONCIA: I won’t listen to you.
ADELA: You’ll listen! I was afraid of you. But now
I’m stronger than you!
(Angustias enters.)
ANGUSTIAS: Forever arguing!
LA PONCIA: Of course. In all this heat she insists I go
and fetch her something from the store.
ANGUSTIAS: Did you buy that bottle of scent for me?
LA PONCIA: The dearest one: and the powder. I’ve put
them on the table in your room.
(Angustias exits.)
ADELA: Not a word!
LA PONCIA: We’ll see about that!
(Martirio, Amelia and
AMELIA: The lace for Angustias’ wedding sheets is
beautiful.
ADELA: (To
Martirio, who is holding some lace) And that?
MARTIRIO: It’s for me. For a
petticoat.
ADELA: (Sarcastically)
One has to have a sense of humour!
MARTIRIO: (Pointedly)
For my own eyes. I don’t need to show off to anyone.
LA PONCIA: No one sees you in your petticoat.
MARTIRIO: (Pointedly
looking at Adela) Sometimes they do! But I adore
underwear. If I were rich I’d have it of finest linen. It’s one of the few
pleasures left to me.
LA PONCIA: This lace is fine for a baby’s bonnet or for
a christening gown. I could never dress mine in it. Let’s see if Angustias can
hers. If she starts having children you’ll be sewing day and night.
AMELIA: Much less look after someone else’s children.
Look at the neighbours down the street, martyrs to four little idiots.
LA PONCIA: They’re better off than you are. At least
they have a laugh and you can hear them fighting!
MARTIRIO: Then go and serve them.
LA PONCIA: No. I’ve been sent to serve in this convent!
(Distant bells are heard, as if
through several walls.)
LA PONCIA: It struck three a moment ago.
MARTIRIO: In this heat!
ADELA: (Sitting
down) Oh, if I could only be out in the fields too!
MARTIRIO: (Sitting
down) That’s so!
AMELIA: (Sitting
down) Ay!
LA PONCIA: There’s nothing like being in the fields at
this time of year. Yesterday morning the harvesters arrived. Forty
or fifty strapping men.
LA PONCIA: From a long way off. They’re from the
mountains. A happy crowd! Like sun-scorched trees! Shouting and throwing
stones! Last night a woman with a sequined dress arrived in the village and
danced to an accordion, and fifteen of the men hired her and took her off to
the olive grove. I watched them from a distance. The one who organised the
hiring was a young man with green eyes, lean as a sheaf of wheat.
AMELIA: Is that a fact?
ADELA: Well, it’s possible!
LA PONCIA: Years ago one of these women came here and I
gave her money myself so my eldest could go with her. Men must do these things!
ADELA: Everything is forgiven them.
AMELIA: To be born a woman is the great crime.
(The sound of singing is heard in
the distance. It draws nearer.)
LA PONCIA: That’s them. They have some fine songs.
AMELIA: They’re off to the reaping, now.
CHORUS: The
reapers are leaving,
they’re off to the reaping,
and with them the hearts
of all the girls watching.
(Tambourines, and carrañacas
– traditional instruments, small wooden
or metal plates scraped with sticks – are
heard. Pause. All the women listen, in a silence pierced by sunlight.)
AMELIA: The heat doesn’t bother them.
MARTIRIO: They reap amidst the fiery rays.
ADELA: I’d like to be a reaper so I could come and
go at will. Then I’d be able to forget what’s gnawing at us.
MARTIRIA: What is it you need to forget?
ADELA: Each of us has something.
MARTIRIO: (With
feeling) Each of us!
LA PONCIA: Hush! Hush!
CHORUS: (Far
off)
You
girls there from the village
open your doors and windows;
the reaper wants your roses
to brighten his sombrero.
LA PONCIA: What a song!
MARTIRIO: (Nostalgically)
You girls
there from the village
open your doors and windows…
ADELA: (Passionately)
…the
reaper wants your roses
to brighten his sombrero.
(The sound of the singing grows
fainter.)
LA PONCIA: They’re turning the corner now.
ADELA: Let’s go and watch them from the window of my
room.
LA PONCIA: Take care not to open it too wide, because
they’re up to shoving at it to see who’s looking at them.
(The three of them leave. Martirio
remains seated on the low chair with her head in her hands.)
AMELIA: (Approaching)
What is it?
MARTIRIO: The heat is making me ill.
AMELIA: No more than that?
MARTIRIO: I wish it was November, with days of rain and
frost; anything but this interminable summer.
AMELIA: It will pass and return again.
MARTIRIO: Of course! (Pause) What time did you go to sleep last night?
AMELIA: I don’t know. I sleep like a log. Why?
MARTIRIO: Nothing, only I thought I heard someone in
the stable yard.
AMELIA: You did?
MARTIRIO: Very late.
AMELIA: And you weren’t scared?
MARTIRIO: No. I’ve heard it on other nights.
AMELIA: We should be on guard. Might it have been the
farmhands?
MARTIRIO: The farmhands aren’t here till six.
AMELIA: Perhaps a young mule that needs breaking in.
MARTIRIO: (In a
low voice, full of hidden meaning) Ah, yes! A young mule,
one that needs breaking in.
AMELIA: We should warn the others.
MARTIRIO: No! No, say nothing. It’s probably my
imagination.
AMELIA: Perhaps.
(Pause.
Amelia starts to leave.)
MARTIRIO: Amelia.
AMELIA: (In the
doorway) What is it?
(Pause)
MARTIRIO: Nothing.
(Pause)
AMELIA: Why did you call to me?
(Pause)
MARTIRIO: It slipped out. It was unintentional.
(Pause)
AMELIA: Go and lie down for a while.
ANGUSTIAS: (Entering
angrily in a way which creates a sharp contrast with the previous pauses.)
Where is the photograph of Pepe that was under my
pillow? Which of you has it?
MARTIRIO: Neither of us.
AMELIA: It’s not as if Pepe
was a silver Saint Bartholomew.
(La Poncia,
ANGUSTIAS: Where is the photo?
ADELA: What photo?
ANGUSTIAS: One of you has hidden it.
ANGUSTIAS: It was in my room and now it’s not.
MARTIRIO: Maybe it slipped out to the stable yard in
the night? Pepe likes to stroll in the moonlight.
ANGUSTIAS: Don’t waste your wit on me! When he comes
I’ll tell him.
LA PONCIA: No, don’t do that! It will turn up! (Looking at Adela)
ANGUSTIAS: I want to know which one of you has it!
ADELA: (Looking
at Martirio) Someone does! But not me!
MARTIRIO: (Pointedly)
Naturally!
BERNARDA: (Entering
leaning on her stick) What’s this noise in my
house amidst all this stifling silence? The neighbours must have their ears
glued to the walls.
ANGUSTIAS: They’ve stolen my fiancé’s photograph.
BERNARDA: (Fiercely)
Who has? Who?
ANGUSTIAS: They have!
BERNARDA: Which of you was it? (Silence) Answer me. (Silence. To La Poncia) Search their rooms, and their beds. This is
what comes of not keeping you all on a tighter leash. But I’ll haunt your
dreams! (To Angustias.)
Are you sure?
ANGUSTIAS: Yes.
BERNARDA: You’ve searched for it properly?
ANGUSTIAS: Yes, Mother.
(They are all standing. An awkward
silence ensues.)
BERNARDA: At my time of life, you’d make me drink the
bitterest venom a mother has to swallow. (To
La Poncia, entering) You found it?
LA PONCIA: Here it is.
BERNARDA: Where did you find it?
LA PONCIA: It was…
BERNARDA: Don’t be afraid to say.
LA PONCIA: (Surprised)
Between the sheets of Martirio’s
bed.
BERNARDA: (To
Martirio) Is that true?
MARTIRIO: It’s true.
BERNARDA: (Advancing
and striking her with her stick) May you be cut to pieces, you
good-for-nothing! You sower of discord!
MARTIRIO: (Angrily)
Don’t you hit me, Mother!
BERNARDA: As much as I want!
MARTIRIO: If I let you! Do you hear? Get away from me!
LA PONCIA: Show your mother some respect.
ANGUSTIAS: (Restraining
Bernarda) Leave her alone. Please!
BERNARDA: Not a tear in her eyes.
MARTIRIO: I’ll not cry just to please you.
BERNARDA: Why did you take the photo?
MARTIRIO: Can’t I even play a joke on my sister? Why
else would I want it?
ADELA: (Jealously)
This was no joke: you’ve never liked jokes. It was
something else in you seeking expression. Out with it now.
MARTIRIO: Be quiet, and don’t make me talk, because if
I do the walls will close in from shame!
ADELA: An evil tongue never stops inventing things!
BERNARDA: Adela!
AMELIA: And thinking evil thoughts about us.
MARTIRIO: Others do worse things than that.
ADELA: Until they strip them naked and throw them in
the river.
BERNARDA: Wicked girl!
ANGUSTIAS: It’s not my fault that Pepe
el Romana fell for me.
ADELA: For your money!
ANGUSTIAS: Mother!
BERNARDA: Silence!
MARTIRIO: For your fields, and your orchards.
BERNARDA: Silence, I said! I knew the storm was coming,
but I didn’t expect it so soon. Ay! What a shower of stones rains down on my
heart! But I’m not an old woman yet and I’ve halters for all five of you and
this house that my father built so that not even the weeds will know my
desolation. Get out of here! (They leave.
Bernarda sits desolate. La Poncia stands near the
wall. Bernarda composes herself, bangs her stick down
and speaks) I shall have to take a firm grip! Remember, Bernarda, it’s your
duty!