A small sitting room with green shutters opening on to the garden. The stage is silent. A clock strikes six in the evening. The HOUSEKEEPER crosses the stage carrying a box and a suitcase. Ten years have passed. The AUNTappears and sits on a low chair in the centre of the stage. Silence. The clock strikes six once more. Pause.
HOUSEKEEPER (entering). Six o’clock for the second time.
AUNT. Where’s Rosita?
HOUSEKEEPER. Up there in the tower. Where were you?
AUNT. In the greenhouse, getting the flowerpots together.
HOUSEKEEPER. I haven’t seen you all morning.
AUNT. Since my husband died, the house is so empty it seems twice as big. We even have to go around looking for each other. Some nights, when I cough in my room, I can hear it echoing as if I were in a church.
HOUSEKEEPER. The house is really far too big.
AUNT. Oh, if he were only still alive, with his vision, with all his talent … ! (Almost weeping.)
HOUSEKEEPER (singing). La, la, tra, la, la … No, madam, crying I won’t allow! It’s six years since he died, and I don’t want you to be like you were on the first day. We’ve cried enough for him! Our steps must be firm and sure, madam! Let the sun shine in the dark corners! He can wait for us for years yet while we go on cutting our roses!
AUNT (rising). I’m very old. And we have a great burden to carry.
HOUSEKEEPER. It’ll be alright. I’m old too, you know!
AUNT. I wish I were as old as you!
HOUSEKEEPER. There’s not much difference between us, but I’ve worked hard, so my joints are well oiled. Your legs have gone thin and stiff from too much sitting around!
AUNT. Do you really think that I haven’t worked?
HOUSEKEEPER. Only with the tips of your fingers – with thread, flowers, jams. I’ve worked with my back, with my knees, with my fingernails.
AUNT. So, running a house isn’t really working?
HOUSEKEEPER. It’s much harder scrubbing floors.
AUNT. Well, I don’t want to argue.
HOUSEKEEPER. Why not? It helps to pass the time. Come on! Answer me back! We’ve lost our tongues! In the old days we used to shout at each other – ‘What about this? What about that? Where’s the custard? Get on with the ironing!’ …
AUNT. I’m quite resigned now … soup one day, the next fried breadcrumbs. My little glass of water, my rosary in my purse… I would wait for death with dignity … But when I think of Rosita!
HOUSEKEEPER. That’s what really hurts!
AUNT (angrily). When I think of the wrong that’s been done to her, of all the time she’s been deceived, of the falseness of that man’s heart! He wasn’t one of our family. He could never be one of us! I wish I were twenty years old so that I could take a boat to Tucuman! I’d take a whip to him …
HOUSEKEEPER (breaking in).… and a sword to cut off his head and crush it with two stones and chop off the hand that made false promises and wrote so many lying love-letters!
AUNT. He should be made to pay with blood for what has cost blood, even if it were all my blood! And then …
HOUSEKEEPER. … Scatter his ashes on the sea!
AUNT. Bring him back to life and give him to Rosita! Then I could breathe easily again, knowing the family honour was restored.
HOUSEKEEPER. You have to admit I was right about him.
AUNT. So you were!
HOUSEKEEPER. He found and married the rich girl he was looking for, but he should have told us there and then. Who’s going to want this woman now? She’s too old! Oh, madam, couldn’t we send him a poisoned letter that would kill him as soon as he opened it?
AUNT. Don’t be silly! He’s been married for eight years, and it was only last month that the wretch could write to tell me the truth! I could tell by his letters that there was something – the power of attorney that never came, a kind of hesitation … He didn’t dare tell the truth until now, after his father’s death! And this poor child …
HOUSEKEEPER. Shh …
AUNT (changing the subject). And take the two pots out.
ROSITA enters. She wears a light pink dress in the style of 1910. She has long curls. She looks a good deal older.
HOUSEKEEPER. Child!
ROSITA. What are you doing?
HOUSEKEEPER. Oh, having a bit of a grumble. Where are you going?
ROSITA. To the greenhouse. Have they taken the plants?
AUNT. There are still a few there.
ROSITA leaves. The two women wipe away their tears.
HOUSEKEEPER. Is this all there is? You sitting there and me sitting here? And both of us waiting to die? … Isn’t there any law? Haven’t we got the courage to pulverize him?
AUNT. Hush! Leave it now!
HOUSEKEEPER. I haven’t got the patience to put up with all this without my heart scampering about inside me like a dog that’s being chased. When I buried my husband, I was truly sad, but deep down I was happy… no, not happy … glad to see that it wasn’t me being buried. When I buried my daughter – you’ll know what I mean – when I buried that little girl, it was as if they were trampling on my insides. But, even so, the dead are dead. They are gone, the door closes, and we must live! But this situation with Rosita is the worst of all. It’s like loving someone and not being able to find him; like crying and not knowing who you are crying for; like sighing for someone you know doesn’t deserve it. It’s an open wound that trickles a thread of blood endlessly, and there’s no one, no one in the world to bring the cotton wool, the bandages, or the precious pieces of ice.
AUNT. What do you want me to do?
HOUSEKEEPER. Let the current take us.
AUNT. Everything turns its back on old age.
HOUSEKEEPER. While I’ve got my strength, you’ll lack for nothing.
AUNT (pause. She speaks quietly, with a sense of shame). Woman, I can’t go on paying you your monthly wage. You’ll have to leave us.
HOUSEKEEPER. Wheee! Listen to that wind blowing through the window! Wheee! Or am I going deaf? … And why do I feel the urge to sing? Like the children coming out of school! (Children’s voices are heard.) Can you hear them, madam? Oh, madam, my madam always! (Embracing her.)
AUNT. Listen to me!
HOUSEKEEPER. I’m going to make a casserole of mackerel flavoured with fennel.
AUNT. You must listen!
HOUSEKEEPER. And a snow mountain! I’m going to make you a snow custard covered with coloured sugar …
AUNT. But woman! …
HOUSEKEEPER. I am! … Why, it’s Don Martín! Don Martín, come in! Come in! Amuse my mistress for a while!
The HOUSEKEEPER leaves quickly. DON MARTÍN enters. He is an old man with red hair. He walks with a crutch which supports a crippled leg. He is a dignified, aristocratic man, with a marked air of sadness.
AUNT. Don Martín, a sight for sore eyes!
DON MARTÍN. Is the day fixed for moving?
AUNT. It’s today!
DON MARTÍN. So you really are going?
AUNT. The new house isn’t as good as this. But it has a nice view and a small patio with two fig trees where we can grow some flowers.
DON MARTÍN. Much better, much better!
AUNT. And how are you?
DON MARTÍN. Oh, the same old life! I’ve just given my class on Rhetoric. Like being in Hell itself! It was a wonderful topic: ‘Concept and Definition of Harmony’. But the children couldn’t care less! What children they are! They can see I’m disabled, so they do have a bit of respect: maybe the odd drawing-pin on the seat of my chair, or a paper doll stuck on my back. As for my colleagues, they do the most terrible things to them. They are all the children of rich parents, so they pay and you can’t punish them. The headmaster’s always telling us that. Why, yesterday they insisted on saying that poor Mr Canito, the new geography teacher, was wearing a corset, just because his waist’s on the narrow side. Anyway, when he was alone in the patio, the bullies and the boarders got together, stripped him from the waist up, tied him to one of the pillars in the corridor, and poured a jug of water on him from the balcony above.
AUNT. The poor man!
DON MARTÍN. Every day I arrive at the school trembling, wondering what they are going to do to me, though, as I say, they do respect my misfortune. A little while ago there was a terrible fuss because Mr Consuegra, a wonderful Latin teacher, found his class register had been smeared with cat droppings!
AUNT. The little devils!
DON MARTÍN. But they pay and we have to put up with them! Believe me, the parents only laugh at the wicked pranks they play on us, because we are only assistant teachers and we don’t examine the children. They think we have no feelings – for them we are people perched on the lowest rung of the social ladder out of all those who wear a tie and a starched collar.
AUNT. Ah, Don Martin! What a world we live in!
DON MARTÍN. What a world indeed! I always dreamed of being a poet. I was born with a natural gift and I wrote a play that was never put on.
AUNT. That would be jeptha’s Daughter.
DON MARTÍN. Exactly so.
AUNT. Rosita and I have read it. You lent it to us. We’ve read it four or five times.
DON MARTÍN (anxiously). And?
AUNT. I liked it very much. I’ve always told you that. Especially when the heroine is about to die and she remembers her mother and calls out to her.
DON MARTÍN. A powerful scene, that one! A true drama. A play with shape and depth. Impossible to put on the stage! (He recites.)
Oh, mother unequalled! Turn your eyes on Her who lies before you in wretched trance!
Receive unto yourself these glittering jewels! Observe the terrible horror of death’s advance!
Not at all bad, is it? A fine ring to it, and note the caesura in ‘Observe the terrible horror … of death’s advance!’
AUNT. Quite wonderful!
DON MARTÍN. And then the part when Glucinius goes to challenge Isias and looks out from behind the arras.
HOUSEKEEPER (interrupting him). Through here!
TWO WORKMEN enter dressed in overalls.
FIRST WORKMAN. Afternoon!
AUNT and DON MARTÍN. Good afternoon!
HOUSEKEEPER. This one!
She points to a large divan at the back of the room. The men take it out slowly as if they are removing a coffin. The HOUSEKEEPER goes out after them. Silence. Two strokes of a bell are heard as the men take the divan out.
DON MARTÍN. Is it the novena of St Gertrude the Great?
AUNT. Yes, at St Anthony’s.
DON MARTÍN. It’s very difficult to be a poet. (The men leave.) After that I wanted to be a chemist. A much quieter life.
AUNT. My brother – God rest his soul – was a chemist.
DON MARTÍN. But I didn’t manage it. I had to help my mother out, so I became a teacher. That’s why I envied your husband so much. He was what he wanted to be.
AUNT. And it ruined him!
DON MARTÍN. Perhaps, but my situation is worse.
AUNT. But you go on writing.
DON MARTÍN. I don’t know why I do it. I’ve no illusions, but it’s the only thing I like doing. Did you read my short story? It appeared yesterday in the second issue of The Intellectual of Granada.
AUNT. You mean Matilda’s Birthday? Oh yes. We did. An absolute delight.
DON MARTÍN. You really think so? I wanted to try to be more up-to-date by writing something with a modern atmosphere. I even refer to an aeroplane! Well, you have to keep abreast of things! But still, it’s the sonnets I like best of all.
AUNT. To the nine muses of Parnassus!
DON MARTÍN. The ten! The ten! Don’t you remember I named Rosita as the tenth muse?
HOUSEKEEPER (entering). Madam, help me to fold this sheet. (The two of them begin to fold it.) Don Martín with your little red head! Why didn’t you marry, you good Christian man? You wouldn’t have been so lonely now!
DON MARTÍN. No one ever loved me!
HOUSEKEEPER. Well, there’s no good taste left. Why, you’ve got a lovely way of speaking!
AUNT. You be careful you don’t make him fall in love with you!
DON MARTÍN. That’ll be the day!
HOUSEKEEPER. When he’s got a class in the ground-floor room of the school, I go over to the coalshed to listen: ‘What does idea mean?’ ‘Idea is the intellectual representation of a thing or an object.’ Isn’t that what you say?
DON MARTÍN. Just listen to her! Listen to her!
HOUSEKEEPER. Yesterday he was bawling out: ‘No. This is a hyperbaton’, and then ‘the epinicion’ … I’d love to be able to understand it, but since I can’t always start to laugh. The coalman is always reading a book called The Ruins of Palmyra. He looks at me and his eyes are like the glances of two mad cats. But even if I do laugh, because I’m plain ignorant, I know Don Martín’s a very clever man.
DON MARTÍN. Nowadays no credit’s given to rhetoric and poetry, nor to a university education.
The HOUSEKEEPER goes out quickly, carrying the folded sheet.
AUNT. What are we going to do? There’s not much time left for us to walk this stage.
DON MARTÍN. We should use it well in acts of kindness and sacrifice.
AUNT. What’s that? (Shouts are heard.)
HOUSEKEEPER (entering). Don Martín! You are wanted at the school! The children have stuck a nail through the water-pipes! All the classrooms are flooded!
DON MARTÍN. I’m going. I dreamt of Parnassus and I have to do the work of a builder or a plumber. As long as they don’t push me or I slip …
The HOUSEKEEPER helps DON MARTÍN out of his chair.
HOUSEKEEPER. Alright, alright! … Keep calm! Let’s hope the water rises so much that not a single child is left!
DON MARTÍN (leaving). Praise be to God!
AUNT. Poor man! What a fate!
HOUSEKEEPER. Let him be a mirror to you! He irons his own collars and darns his own socks. When he was ill, I took him some custard, and the sheets on his bed were as black as coal – and the walls, and the washbasin … Oh, dear!
AUNT. And other people have so much!
HOUSEKEEPER. That’s why I’ll always say: ‘Damn the
rich! Get rid of them all, down to their fingernails!’ AUNT. Let them be!
HOUSEKEEPER. I’m sure they are all going to Hell headfirst! Where do you think Don Rafael Salé can be, that exploiter of the poor they buried yesterday! God preserve him – all those priests, all those nuns, all that wailing! In Hell, of course! And he’ll be saying: ‘I’ve got twenty million pesetas, don’t pinch me with the tongs! I’ll give you two hundred thousand pesetas if you take these hot coals away from my feet!’ But those devils – they’ll be prodding him here, poking him there, kicking him as hard as they can, smacking him in the face, until his blood is turned to charcoal!
AUNT. All we Christians know that no rich man enters the Kingdom of Heaven, but if you go on talking like that you be careful you don’t go to Hell head-first!
HOUSEKEEPER. Me go to Hell? The first push I’ll give Old Nick’s cauldron will make the hot water reach the edge of the earth. No, madam, no! I’m going to force my way into Heaven. (Sweetly.) With you. Each one of us in an armchair of sky-blue silk, rocking herself, fanning ourselves with fans of scarlet satin. And between us, on a swing of jasmine and rosemary sprigs, Rosita, swinging gently, and behind her your husband covered with roses, exactly as he was when he left this room in his coffin; with the same forehead white as crystal. You are rocking yourself like this, and Rosita like this, and behind us our Lord is throwing roses at us, as if the three of us were a float of mother-of-pearl, decorated with candles and flounces in a Holy Week procession.
AUNT. And handkerchiefs to dry our tears will be left down here!
HOUSEKEEPER. And down here they can all manage as best they can! For us up there a time of happiness!
AUNT. Because here every drop has been squeezed from our hearts!
FIRST WORKMAN (entering). What would you like done now, madam?
HOUSEKEEPER. Come with me! (As they go out, she calls back.) Take heart, madam!
AUNT. God bless you!
She sits down slowly. ROSITA appears holding a bundle of letters. Silence.
ROSITA. Just a moment ago. Your cousin Esperanza sent a child for a screwdriver.
AUNT. They’ll be getting the beds ready for tonight. We should have gone early to do things as we want them. My cousin will have put the furniture any old how.
ROSITA. I’d rather leave when the street is dark. If I could, I’d put the street-lamp out. You can be sure the neighbours will be watching. With the removal-men here, the children have been around the front door all day long, as if someone in the family had died.
AUNT. If I’d only known, I would never have let your uncle mortgage the house with the furniture and everything. We are left with only the barest necessities – a chair to sit on and a bed to sleep in!
ROSITA. Or to die in!
AUNT. What a fine mess he’s left us in! Tomorrow the new owners will be here! I wish your uncle could see us! The old fool! No head for business! Off his head with his roses! No concept of money! He was ruining me day by day! ‘Oh, Mr So-and-So is here.’ And he’d say: ‘Show him in’; and he’d come in with empty pockets and go out with them bulging with silver, and always: ‘Don’t tell my wife!’ The prodigal! The coward! And there was no problem he wouldn’t try to resolve … no children he wouldn’t protect, because ;.. he had a bigger heart than any man ever had… the purest Christian soul… Oh, shut up, you old woman! Shut up, you chatterbox, and respect the will of God! We are penniless! Alright! Accept it! But when I see you …
ROSITA. Don’t worry about me, Aunt! I know the mortgage was to pay for my furniture and my trousseau. That’s what really hurts me.
AUNT. He did the right thing. You deserved it all. And everything that was bought is worthy of you and will look a treat the day you use it.
ROSITA. The day I use it?
AUNT. Of course! On your wedding day!
ROSITA. I’d rather not talk about it.
AUNT. That’s the trouble with ‘decent’ women in these parts. Not talking! We don’t speak when we should speak. (Calling out.) Has the postman come?
ROSITA. What do you intend doing?
AUNT. Letting you see me live, so you can learn from my example!
ROSITA (embracing her). Oh, hush!
AUNT. I have to speak out sometime! Get out from these four walls, my child! Don’t give in to misfortune!
ROSITA (kneeling). I’ve become accustomed to living outside myself for many years now, thinking about things that were far away… And now that these things no longer exist, I find myself going around and around in a cold place, searching for a way out that I’ll never find … I knew the truth. I knew he’d got married. A kind soul insisted on telling me, but I went on receiving his letters with an illusion full of sadness that surprised even me … If no one had said anything; if you hadn’t known; if only I had known the truth, his letters and his deceit would have fed my dream as they did in the first year of his absence. But everyone knew the truth and I’d find myself picked out by a pointing finger that ridiculed the modesty of a girl soon to be married and made grotesque the fan of a girl who was still single. Each year that passed was like an intimate piece of clothing torn from my body. One day a friend gets married, and then another, and yet another, and the next day she has a son, and the son grows up and comes to show me his examination marks. Or there are new houses and new songs. And there am I, with the same trembling excitement, cutting the same carnations, looking at the same clouds. And then one day I’m out walking, and I suddenly realise I don’t know anyone. Girls and boys leave me behind because I can’t keep up, and one of them says: ‘There’s the old maid’; and another one, a good-looking boy with curly hair says: ‘No one’s going to fancy her again.’ I hear it all and I can’t protest against it. I can only go on, with a mouth full of bitterness and a great desire to run away, to take off my shoes, to rest and never move again from my corner.
AUNT. Oh, Rosita, my child!
ROSITA. I’m too old now. Yesterday I heard the housekeeper say that I’d still be able to marry. Never! Don’t even think it! I lost that hope when I lost the man I wanted with all my blood, the man I loved … and go on loving. Everything’s finished… and yet, with all my dreams destroyed, I go to bed and get up again with the terrible feeling that hope is finally dead … I want to run away, not to be able to see, to be calm, empty … Doesn’t a poor woman have the right to breathe freely? And yet hope pursues me, circles around me, gnaws at me: like a dying wolf trying to sink his teeth in for the last time.
AUNT. Why didn’t you listen to me? Why didn’t you marry someone else?
ROSITA. I was tied. And what man ever came to this house sincerely and with a genuine wish to win my affection? No one!
AUNT. You paid no attention to them. You were too dazzled by that lying lover of yours!
ROSITA. Aunt, I’ve always been serious.
AUNT. You’ve clung to that one idea with no regard to reality and no thought for your own future.
ROSITA. I am as I am. And I can’t change myself. Now the only thing left to me is my dignity. What’s here inside me, I keep to myself.
AUNT. That’s what I don’t want you to do!
HOUSEKEEPER (coming in suddenly). Nor me! Speak! Get things off your chest! We’ll all have a good cry. We’ll all share our feelings.
ROSITA. What can I tell you? There are things that can’t be told because there aren’t the words to tell them. And even if there were, who would understand their meaning? … Oh, you understand if I ask for bread, or water, or even a kiss, but you could never understand nor take away this dark, heavy hand that freezes or burns my heart – I don’t know which – whenever I’m alone.
HOUSEKEEPER. At least you’ve said something!
AUNT. There’s consolation for everything!
ROSITA. If I told you the whole story, it would never end. I know my eyes will always be young, but my back will become more bent with every passing day. In any case, what’s happened to me has happened to thousands of women. (Pause.) But why am I saying all this? (To the HOUSEKEEPER.) You, tidy things up! In a few minutes we’ll be leaving this house with its garden. And you, Aunt, don’t worry about me! (Pause. To the HOUSEKEEPER.) Go on! I don’t like you looking at me like that. It annoys me when people have the expression of faithful dogs. (The HOUSEKEEPER leaves.) Those pitying looks upset me. And they make me angry!
AUNT. Child, what can I do?
ROSITA. Accept things as a lost cause. (Pause. Walks up and down.) I know you are thinking about your sister, the old maid … an old maid just like me. She was bitter. She hated children and any girl who had a new dress… but I won’t be like that. (Pause.) I’m sorry.
AUNT. Oh, don’t be silly!
An eighteen-year-old BOY appears.
YOUTH. But … are you moving?
ROSITA. In a few minutes. When it gets dark.
AUNT. Who is he?
ROSITA. Maria’s son.
AUNT. Which Maria?
ROSITA. The oldest of the three Manolas.
AUNT. Oh!
Those who visit the Alhambra,
Alone in twos or threes.
You’ll have to excuse me, child. My memory’s very bad.
YOUTH. You’ve only seen me a couple of times.
AUNT. I was very fond of your mother. She was a charming person. She died at about the same time as my husband.
ROSITA. It was before that.
YOUTH. Eight years ago now.
ROSITA. He has her face.
YOUTH (spiritedly). But not as good as hers. Mine was put together with a hammer!
AUNT. The same sense of humour. Her character.
YOUTH. Of course, I do look like her. At carnival time I put on one of her dresses … one she’d had for a long time … a green one …
ROSITA (sadly). With black lace … and Nile-green flounces of silk.
YOUTH. Yes.
ROSITA. And a great bow of velvet at the waist.
YOUTH. That’s the one.
ROSITA. Falling on either side of the bustle.
YOUTH. What a silly fashion! (He laughs.)
ROSITA (sadly). But such a pretty fashion.
YOUTH. Oh, don’t tell me! There I was, coming downstairs with the dress on, laughing my head off, filling the place with the smell of mothballs, and all of a sudden my aunt started to cry bitterly because she said it was just the same as seeing my mother. Well, it affected me, of course, so I left the dress and the mask on the bed.
ROSITA. There’s nothing more alive than a memory. They reach the point where they make our lives impossible. That’s why I can well understand those little old women who have taken to drink and wander the streets trying to blot the world out, or sit singing on the seats along the avenue.
AUNT. And how is your married aunt?
YOUTH. She writes to us from Barcelona. Less every time.
ROSITA. Does she have children?
YOUTH. Four.
Pause.
HOUSEKEEPER (entering). Give me the keys to the wardrobe.
The AUNT gives the keys to her. Then, alluding to the YOUTH.
This boy here was out walking with his sweetheart yesterday. I saw them in the Plaza Nueva. She wanted to walk one way and he wouldn’t let her. (She laughs.)
AUNT. Let the poor boy be!
YOUTH (embarrassed). It was only a joke!
HOUSEKEEPER (leaving). Stop blushing then!
ROSITA. Alright, that’s enough!
YOUTH. It’s a lovely garden you’ve got.
ROSITA. We used to have!
AUNT. We must cut some flowers.
YOUTH, I hope things turn out well, Doña Rosita.
ROSITA. God be with you, child!
The AUNT and the YOUTH leave. Evening is falling.
Doña Rosita! Doña Rosita!
And her colour’s red and deep.
When evening falls her colour fades,
The whiteness of a salt-stained cheek.
When darkness comes her life ends,
Her soft petals begin to weep.
Pause.
HOUSEKEEPER (comes in, wearing a shawl). Time to go! ROSITA. Yes, I’ll get my coat.
HOUSEKEEPER. I’ve taken the coat-rack down. It’s hanging on the window-catch.
The THIRD SPINSTER enters wearing a dark dress with a mourning veil over her head and a ribbon around her neck in the style of 1912. They speak quietly.
THIRD SPINSTER. You’re off then.
HOUSEKEEPER. In a few minutes.
THIRD SPINSTER. I was giving a piano lesson nearby so I called to see if you needed anything.
HOUSEKEEPER. May God reward you!
THIRD SPINSTER. What a sad state of affairs!
HOUSEKEEPER. Yes, yes. But don’t soften my heart! Don’t make me weepy! I’m the one who has to bring a bit of life into this mourning without a corpse that you can see here.
THIRD SPINSTER. I’d like to say ‘hello’ to them.
HOUSEKEEPER. Better not! Call at the other house!
THIRD SPINSTER. Yes. That would be better. But if you need anything! You know I’ll do what I can.
HOUSEKEEPER. It’s a bad time. But it will pass.
The wind is heard.
THIRD SPINSTER. The wind is rising!
HOUSEKEEPER. Yes. It looks like rain. The
THIRD SPINSTER leaves.
AUNT (entering). With this wind there won’t be a single rose left. The cypresses are almost touching the walls of my room. It’s just as if someone wanted to make the garden ugly so that we wouldn’t feel sad at leaving it behind.
HOUSEKEEPER. If you mean it was pretty, it was never that! Is your coat done up? Take this scarf. Muffle up! (Puts it around her.) Now, when we get there, dinner will be ready. And custard for dessert. Just as you like it. Custard as golden as a marigold!
The HOUSEKEEPER speaks in a voice choked with emotion. A thud is heard.
AUNT. That’s the greenhouse door! Can’t you close it?
HOUSEKEEPER. It won’t close. It’s swollen with the dampness.
AUNT. It’ll be banging all night.
HOUSEKEEPER. Well, we won’t hear it… !
The stage is in the soft half-light of evening.
AUNT. But I will! I will!
ROSITA appears. She is pale, dressed in white, with a coat to the hem of her dress.
HOUSEKEEPER (courageously). Let’s go!
ROSITA (in an emotional voice). It’s started to rain. So there won’t be anyone at the window watching us leave.
AUNT. Much better if no one sees us.
ROSITA hesitates, supports herself on a chair and stumbles, to be supported by the HOUSEKEEPER and the AUNT, who prevent her from falling.
ROSITA. And when the darkness surrounds her, Her petals begin to fall.
They leave and the stage is left empty. The door is heard banging. Suddenly a french door at the back blows open and the white curtains flutter in the wind.
Curtain.