Federico García
Lorca
Doña Rosita the Spinster
and the Language of Flowers
(Doña Rosita la soltera
o el
lenguaje de las
1935
A Granadine poem of the 19th Century, divided into several
gardens with scenes of song and dance
Act
II
A. S. Kline © 2008 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,
(Fifteen years later. The sitting
room in Dona Rosita’s house. In the background, the garden.)
SEÑOR X: Well, I will always be one with the century.
UNCLE: The century that has just begun will be a
materialist century.
SEÑOR X: But much more advanced than the last one. My
friend, Señor Longoria of
UNCLE: And I say: where are they going so fast? See
what happened in the Paris-Madrid race which had to be abandoned, because
before reaching
SEÑOR X: Count Louis Zborowski,
who died by accident, and Marcel Renault, or Renol, either
form can be used or spoken, who also died by accident, were martyrs for
science, who will be worshipped at the altars on the day when the Positivist
religion arises. I knew Renault quite well. Poor Marcel!
UNCLE: You won’t convince me. (He sits down.)
SEÑOR X: (With
his foot resting on a chair and playing with his walking stick.) Clearly;
though a Professor of Political Economics shouldn’t be discussing such questions
with a grower of roses. Yet nowadays, believe me, there’s no lack of quietist
or obscurantist ideas. Nowadays the
path is open to a Jean Baptiste Say, or See, either
form can be used or spoken, or a Count Leo Tolstoy, Lev in Russian, as daring
in form as he is profound in content. I am a citizen of
UNCLE: Everyone lives as best he knows or can, in this
everyday world.
SEÑOR X: That’s understood, Earth is a mediocre
planet, but we must nurture civilisation. If Santos Dumont, instead of studying
comparative Meteorology, had dedicated himself to cultivating roses, the
dirigible balloon would still be in Brahma’s breast.
UNCLE: (Disgustedly)
Botany is also a science.
SEÑOR X: (Disparagingly)
Yes, when it is applied: by studying the juices of fragrant Anthemis, or the giant Pulsatilla, or
the narcotic effects of Datura Stramonium.
UNCLE: (Innocently)
Are you interested in those plants?
SEÑOR X: I have an insufficient volume of experience
regarding them. Their horticulture interests me, which is quite different. Voila! (Pause.) And…. Rosita?
UNCLE: Rosita? (Pause.
In a loud voice.) Rosita!...
A VOICE: (From
within) She’s not here.
UNCLE: She’s not here.
SEÑOR X: I regret it.
UNCLE: I too. Since it’s her Saint’s Day, she has to
go and say her forty Credos.
SEÑOR X: For the occasion I have brought you this pendentive. It’s
an
UNCLE: It’s much appreciated.
SEÑOR X: I was all for buying a little cavern in
silver through whose entrance the Virgin of Lourdes, or Lordes,
can be seen, or a buckle for a belt adorned with a snake and four dragonflies,
but I preferred the first as being more to my taste.
UNCLE: Thank you.
SEÑOR X: I’m enchanted by its favourable reception.
UNCLE: Thank you
SEÑOR X: My best wishes to your wife.
UNCLE: Thank you.
SEÑOR X: And my regards to her charming little niece,
to whom I wish all happiness in celebrating her name-day.
UNCLE: A thousand thanks.
SEÑOR X: Regard me as your faithful servant.
UNCLE: A thousand thanks.
SEÑOR X: I shall repeat it…
UNCLE: Thank you, thank you, thank you.
SEÑOR X: Forever. (He
exits.)
UNCLE: (Loudly)
Thank you, thank you, thank you.
NURSE: (Enters,
laughing) I don’t know how you have the patience. Between that gentleman,
and the other, Don Confucio Montes de Oca, baptised in Masonic Lodge 43, they’ll set the house on
fire someday.
UNCLE: I’ve told you I don’t like you eavesdropping
on my conversations.
NURSE: That’s called being ungrateful. I was behind
the door, certainly, but I wasn’t there to listen, but to pick up a broom since
the gentleman was leaving.
AUNT: (Entering)
Has he gone yet?
UNCLE: He has.
NURSE: Is he still a possibility for Rosalita?
AUNT: Why speak of possibilities? You know nothing
of Rosita!
NURSE: But I know about possibilities.
AUNT: My niece is engaged.
NURSE: Mustn’t speak, mustn’t speak, mustn’t speak, mustn’t
speak!
AUNT: Then be quiet.
NURSE: Does it seem right to you for a man to go off
and leave a woman stranded for fifteen years, one who is the cream on the milk?
She ought to be married. It grieves my heart caring for her table linen in
AUNT: Why involve yourself in something that has
nothing to do with you?
NURSE: (With
amazement) But I don’t involve
myself, I’m already involved.
AUNT: I’m sure she’s happy.
NURSE: It’s a pretence. Yesterday I had to spend all
day with her hanging around the entrance to the Circus because she insisted
that one of the acrobats looked like her cousin.
AUNT: And did he really look like him?
NURSE: He was as handsome as a novice about to sing
his first mass, but of course she would prefer the nephew to have that figure, that
white neck and that moustache. He looked nothing like him. In your family the
men are not handsome.
AUNT: Well, thank you!
NURSE: They are all short with sloping shoulders.
AUNT: Off with you!
NURSE: It’s the truth. All it was, Rosita liked the
acrobat as I liked him or you would. But she ascribes everything to the other.
Sometimes I’d like to give her a thump on the head. Because she’ll get cow’s
eyes gazing at the sky so much.
AUNT: Fine; and the point of this. It’s acceptable
to speak plainly, but not to be coarse.
NURSE: I don’t speak out to anyone unless I love
them.
AUNT: It sometimes seems otherwise to me.
NURSE: I’d give her the bread from my mouth and
blood from my veins, if she asked it of me.
AUNT: (Angrily)
A tongue full of idle promises! Mere words!
NURSE: (Angrily)
And deeds! I have proved it, and deeds! I love her more than you.
AUNT: That’s a lie.
NURSE: (Angrily)
No it’s the truth!
AUNT: Don’t raise your voice to me!
NURSE: (Loudly)
Because it sounds out like a bell.
AUNT: Be quiet, you ignoramus!
NURSE: Forty years I’ve been with you.
AUNT: (Almost
weeping) Well you’re dismissed!
NURSE: (Shouting)
Thank God, I’ll be out of your sight!
AUNT: (Weeping)
Off to the street with you!
NURSE: (Breaking
into tears) To the street! (She heads
towards the door weeping and in departing knocks something over. Both of them
are weeping.)
(Pause.)
AUNT: (Wiping
away her tears, speaking softly) What have you knocked over?
NURSE: A barometer, in the Louis XV style.
AUNT: Really?
NURSE: (Weeping)
Yes, Señora.
AUNT: Can I see?
NURSE: It’s for Rosita’s name day. (She approaches.)
AUNT: (Looking
at it.) It’s a beauty.
NURSE: (In a
tearful voice) Set in velvet, it’s a fountain with real snails; over the
fountain a bower of wire with green roses; the water in the bowl is a cluster
of blue sequins, and the jet is the thermometer itself. The pools around it are
painted in oils and a nightingale is drinking from them, embroidered in gold
thread. I wanted one where you pulled a cord and it sang, but it wasn’t
possible.
AUNT: It’s not possible.
NURSE: But it doesn’t need to sing. We’ve real ones
in the garden.
AUNT: That’s true. (Pause.) Why have you done this?
NURSE: (Weeping)
I would give Rosita everything I have.
AUNT: It’s because you love her like no one else!
NURSE: Second only to you.
AUNT: No. You nursed her at your breast.
NURSE: You have given your life to her.
AUNT: But I did it out of duty, you out of
generosity.
NURSE: (More strongly)
Don’t say that!
AUNT: You have shown that you love her more than
anyone else.
NURSE: I have done what anyone would in my position.
I’m a servant. You pay me and I serve.
AUNT: You’ve always been considered one of the
family.
NURSE: A humble servant who gives what she has,
that’s all.
AUNT: Are you telling me that is all you are?
NURSE: Am I anything more?
AUNT: (Annoyed)
You shouldn’t say such things to me. I won’t listen.
NURSE: (Annoyed)
Nor I. (They exit rapidly, one by each
door)
(As she leaves the Aunt encounters
the Uncle.)
UNCLE: From being pressed together so long, bits of
lace become thorns.
AUNT: She is forever parading hers.
UNCLE: Don’t tell me again, I know it all off by
heart…still, we can’t do without her. Yesterday I heard you explaining all the details of our bank account with her.
You don’t know how to maintain your position. It doesn’t seem to me to be the
most suitable of conversations to have with a servant.
AUNT: She is not a servant.
UNCLE: (Gently)
Enough, enough: I don’t wish to start an argument.
AUNT: But can’t you discuss it with me?
UNCLE: I can, but I prefer to stay silent.
AUNT: Though you insist on words of reproach.
UNCLE: Why should I say anything about it after all
this time? To avoid argument I make my bed, wash my shirts with a bar of soap,
and shake out the rugs in my room.
AUNT: It’s not right to give yourself the airs of a
superior man who is badly served, when everything in this house is subject to
your comfort and wishes.
UNCLE: (Gently)
On the contrary, my dear.
AUNT: (Seriously)
Not at all. Instead of making lace, I prune your plants. What do you do for me?
UNCLE: Pardon me. The time comes when people who
have lived together for many years display irritation and anxiety over the
tiniest things, to add intensity and passion to something long dead. We’ve been
having these conversations for twenty years.
AUNT: No, for twenty years we’ve been breaking
windows…
UNCLE: And we haven’t minded the draught.
(Rosita appears. She is dressed in
pink. The fashion has altered from the mutton sleeves of 1900. Her skirt is
bell-shaped. She crosses the stage, quickly, with scissors in hand. At
centre-stage she halts.)
ROSITA: Has the postman been?
UNCLE: Has he?
AUNT: I don’t know. (Aloud) Has the postman been? (Pause)
No, not yet.
ROSITA: He always goes by at this time.
UNCLE: He ought to be here shortly.
AUNT: He’s often delayed.
ROSITA: The other day I found him playing games with
the children and he’d left a pile of letters on the ground.
AUNT: He’ll be here soon.
ROSITA: Call me. (She
exits rapidly.)
UNCLE: Where are you going with those scissors?
ROSITA: To cut some roses.
UNCLE: (Astounded)
What? And who has given you permission?
AUNT: I have. It’s her name day.
ROSITA: I want to put some in the jardinière and in
the vase in the hall.
UNCLE: Every time I cut a rose it’s as if I were
cutting off a finger. I feel it the same way. (Gazing at his wife.) I won’t argue. I know they don’t last. (The Nurse enters.) Thus they speak of
the waltz of the roses, which is one of the more beautiful compositions of
these times, but I can’t conceal the disgust it arouses in me to see them in
their vases. (He exits the stage.)
ROSITA: (To the
Nurse) Has the post come?
NURSE: Well, the only thing roses are good for is to
adorn rooms.
ROSITA: (Annoyed)
I asked if the mail has come.
NURSE: (Annoyed)
Would I keep the letters to myself if they had come?
AUNT: Go, and cut the flowers.
ROSITA: There’s a bitter taste to everything in this
house.
NURSE: We come across pesticides in every corner.
AUNT: Are you content?
ROSITA: I don’t know.
AUNT: Why is that?
ROSITA: When I don’t see people I’m content, but when
I have to…
AUNT: Of course! I don’t like the life you lead.
Your fiancé doesn’t demand you be unsociable. He always says in his letters you
should go about.
ROSITA: It’s just that on the streets I notice how
time has passed and I don’t want to abandon my dreams. They have built another
house in the little square. I don’t want to notice how time is passing.
AUNT: Of course! I’ve often advised you to write to
your fiancé and wed someone else here. You will be happier. I know there are
men young and old who are fond of you.
ROSITA: But Aunt! My feelings are so profound, so
deep-rooted. If I don’t see people I can believe another week has gone by. I can
hope, just as I did at first. What is a
year or two, or five? (A bell rings.)
The post.
AUNT: What might it bring you?
NURSE: (Entering)
Here are those wretched spinsters.
AUNT: Mary and Jesus!
ROSITA: What’s the matter?
NURSE: That mother and her three daughters. All show
on the outside and straw for brains. They need a good kick in the…! (She exits.)
(The three spinster daughters and
their mother enter. The three Spinsters are wearing huge hats with straggling
feathers, and exaggerated costumes, gloves to the elbow with bracelets round
them, and fans hanging from long chains. The Mother is dressed in brownish
black with a hat with old purple ribbons.)
MOTHER: Congratulations. (She kisses them.)
ROSITA: Thank you. (She kisses the daughters, and addresses them by their names.) Love! Charity! Mercy!
FIRST SPINSTER: Congratulations.
SECOND SPINSTER: Congratulations.
THIRD SPINSTER: Congratulations.
AUNT: (To the
Mother) How are your feet?
MOTHER: Worse all the time. If it were not for these
girls, I’d be housebound. (They sit down.)
AUNT: Have you tried rubbing them with lavender?
FIRST SPINSTER: Every night.
SECOND SPINSTER: And a decoction of mallows.
AUNT: No rheumatism can resist it.
(Pause)
MOTHER: And your husband?
AUNT: He’s well, thank you.
(Pause)
MOTHER: And his roses?
AUNT: And his roses.
THIRD SPINSTER: How pretty the flowers are!
SECOND SPINSTER: We have a Saint Francis rose in a pot.
ROSITA: Do Saint Francis roses have any scent?
FIRST SPINSTER: Very little.
MOTHER: What I like most is mock orange.
THIRD SPINSTER: Violets are very beautiful.
(Pause)
MOTHER: Daughters, have you brought the card?
THIRD SPINSTER: Yes. It’s a girl dressed in pink, and is at
the same time a hygrometer. You can see the friar’s hood that shows the
humidity. Depending on how humid it is the girl’s skirts, which are of very thin
paper, open or close.
ROSITA: (
The
nightingales were singing
And
the song they sang was:
‘Rosita
is the sweetest.’
You shouldn’t have gone to so much trouble.
AUNT: It’s in very good taste.
MOTHER: I don’t lack taste, I lack money.
FIRST SPINSTER: Mama…!
SECOND SPINSTER: Mama…!
THIRD SPINSTER: Mama…!
MOTHER: Daughters, here I can speak confidentially. There
is no one else listening. Indeed, you know that since my poor husband died it
has truly required a miracle to live on the pension he left us. I still seem to
hear the father of these children when, generous gentleman that he was, he said
to me: ‘Henrietta, spend, spend, I earn three hundred and fifty pesetas’; but
those times are gone! In spite of everything we have not lost our status. What
anguish I have experienced, Señora, so that these children could continue to
buy hats! What tears, what trouble for a
ribbon or a set of loops! Those feathers and net cost me many sleepless nights.
THIRD SPINSTER: Mama…!
MOTHER: It’s true, daughter. We cannot overspend by
even the smallest amount. Many times I ask them: ‘What do you prefer, children
of my soul: eggs for breakfast or to rent chairs in the promenade?’ And they
reply with one voice: ‘The chairs.’
THIRD SPINSTER: Mama, don’t speak about that any more. All
MOTHER: Of course, who can say otherwise? And we get
by with potatoes or a bunch of grapes, yet still with a Mongolian cloak or a
striped parasol or a poplin blouse, and all the accessories. Because there is
no alternative. But it costs me my life! And my eyes fill with tears when I see
them taking turns with what they have.
SECOND SPINSTER: Do you still go to the Poplar Grove, Rosita?
ROSITA: No.
THIRD SPINSTER: There we always meet the Ponce de Léons, the Herrastis and the
Baroness de Santa Matilde de la Bendición
Papal. The best of
MOTHER: Of course! They were all at the
(Pause)
AUNT: (Rising)
Will you take something? (They all rise)
MOTHER: I don’t have your gift for desserts like Piñonate or Pastel de Gloria.
FIRST SPINSTER: (To
Rosita) Is there any news?
ROSITA: The last post promised some. We’re waiting to
read it.
THIRD SPINSTER: Have you finished your set of Valencienne lace?
ROSITA: Oh yes! I’ve done another in nainsook with
butterflies by a pool.
SECOND SPINSTER: The day you marry you will have the best
trousseau in the world.
ROSITA: Oh, I think it’s all too little. They say men
tire of you if they always see you in the same dress.
NURSE: (Entering)
The daughters of Ayola the photographer are here.
AUNT: You mean the Ayola
young ladies.
NURSE: Here are the noble daughters of the great Ayola, photographer to His Majesty and gold-medal winner at
the Madrid Exhibition. (She exits)
AUNT: We have to put up with her; but at times she
gets on my nerves. (The Spinsters are
looking at some cloth with Rosita.) Servants are impossible.
MOTHER: Be brave with her. I have a woman who sweeps
the floor in the evenings; I give her what I have always given her: one peseta
a month and the leftovers and that is quite enough these days; then the other
day she let us down saying that she wanted five, and I can’t afford it!
AUNT: I don’t know where it will all end.
(The Ayola
daughters enter, greeting Rosita cheerfully. They are dressed in the rich and
exaggerated fashion of the epoch.)
ROSITA: Do you know them?
FIRST AYOLA: Only by sight.
ROSITA: The Señoritas Ayola, the Señora and Señoritas Escarpini.
SECOND AYOLA: We have seen you before sitting on chairs in
the Promenade. (Feigning a smile)
ROSITA: Take a seat. (The Spinsters sit.)
AUNT: (To the
Ayolas) Would you like a sweetmeat?
SECOND AYOLA: No; we’ve eaten not long ago. Indeed I had
four eggs with chopped tomato, and I could hardly rise from my chair.
FIRST AYOLA: (Laughing)
How witty!
(Pause. The Ayolas
burst into uncontrollable laughter which communicates itself to Rosita, who
makes efforts to contain it. The Spinsters and their Mother remain serious. Pause.)
AUNT: What creatures!
MOTHER: Youth!
AUNT: It’s a light-hearted time.
ROSITA: (Walking
round the stage, arranging things.) Please, hush. (They fall silent.)
AUNT: (To the
Third Spinster) And how is your piano going?
THIRD SPINSTER: I don’t play much now. I have too much work
to do.
ROSITA: I haven’t heard you for ages.
MOTHER: If it were not for me their fingers would
have lost their flexibility. But I always insist.
SECOND SPINSTER: Since poor Papa died I don’t feel like it. He
enjoyed it so!
SECOND AYOLA: I agree it often brought tears.
FIRST SPINSTER: When she played Popper’s tarantella.
SECOND SPINSTER: And ‘The
Maiden’s Prayer’.
MOTHER: He was a man of great feeling!
(The Ayola
who has been stifling her laughter, laughs aloud. Rosita turning away from the
Spinsters, also laughs, but controls it.)
AUNT: These girls!
FIRST AYOLA: We laughed because, before we arrived here…
SECOND AYOLA: She stumbled and was about to ring the bell…
FIRST AYOLA: And I… (They
laugh)
(The Spinsters give a small
feigned smile, a shade sad and bored.)
MOTHER: We must go now!
AUNT: Not at all.
ROSITA: (To
them all) Then let us celebrate the fact that you didn’t fall! Nurse, bring
the sweets, those ‘Bones of Saint
Catherine’.
THIRD SPINSTER: How rich they are!
MOTHER: Last year we treated ourselves to a pound of
them.
(The Nurse enters with the sweets.)
NURSE: Titbits for the gentry. (To Rosita) The postman is coming past the poplars.
ROSITA: Wait at the door for him!
FIRST AYOLA: I don’t want one. I’d prefer anisette with
selzer water.
SECOND AYOLA: And I grape juice.
ROSITA: Are you still drinking that!
FIRST AYOLA: When I was six years old I came here and
Rosita’s fiancé introduced me to it. Don’t you remember, Rosita?
ROSITA: (Seriously)
No!
SECOND AYOLA: For my part, Rosita and her fiancé taught me
my ABC…How long ago it all was!
AUNT: Fifteen years!
FIRST AYOLA: I almost seem to forget your fiancé’s face.
SECOND AYOLA: Didn’t he have a scar on his lip?
ROSITA: A scar? Aunt, did he have a scar?
AUNT: Don’t you remember, child? It was the one
thing that made him a little ugly.
ROSITA: But it was not a scar; it was a burn, a
little redness. Scars are deeper than that.
FIRST AYOLA: I wish Rosita would get married!
ROSITA: For goodness sake!
SECOND AYOLA: It’s not foolish. I do too!
ROSITA: And why?