Lorca Plays by Federico Garcia Lorca

Author:Federico Garcia Lorca
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: A&C Black
Published: 1987-08-14T16:00:00+00:00

Act Two

A room in DOÑA ROSITA ’s house. The garden in the background.

MR X. I shall always be a man of this century.

UNCLE. The century we’ve just begun will be pure materialism.

MR X. But far more progressive than the last one. My friend, Mr Longoria, from Madrid, has just bought a motor car. He can hurtle along in it at the incredible speed of eighteen miles an hour. And the Shah of Persia - a really pleasant man - has bought himself a twentyfour horsepower Panhard Levasson.

UNCLE. I’d like to know where everyone’s going in such a hurry. You’ve heard what’s happened in the Paris-Madrid rally. They had to abandon it. All the competitors were dead before they got to Bordeaux.

MR X. Count Zbronsky, killed in the accident. And Marcel Renault, or Renol - it is and may be pronounced either way - killed as well. Both martyrs of science! Both will be given the highest honour the day the religion of the positive truly dawns! Renol I knew well. Poor Marcello!

UNCLE. You won’t convince me. (He sits down).

MR X (a foot on the chair and playing with his cane). I shall do so dazzlingly, though a teacher of Political Economy can’t really discuss things with a rose-grower. But in this day and age, take my word, neither quietism nor obscurantism can make the slightest headway. Nowadays, the way ahead is opened up for us by a Jean-Baptiste Say or Se - it is and may be pronounced either way - or a Count Leo Tolstwa, vulgarly Tolstoy, as elegant in form as he is profound in concept. I feel myself to be in the living polis. I am not a supporter of natura naturata.

UNCLE. Everyone lives his daily life as best he can or best knows how.

MR X. Of course, this Earth of ours is a very mediocre planet, and one must give a hand to civilization. Now, if Santos Dumont, instead of studying comparative meteorology, had devoted his life to the cultivation of roses, the navigable aerostat would be in the bosom of Brahma.

UNCLE (annoyed). Botany is a science too!

MR X (disparagingly). Ah, yes. But an applied science: to study the juices of the fragrant Anthemis or the rhubarb, or the great Pulsatilla, or the narcotic of the Datura Stramonium.

UNCLE (innocently). Are you interested in those plants?

MR X. I do not have sufficient experience as far as they are concerned. What interests me is culture, which is quite a different matter. Voila! (Pause.) And … Rosita?

UNCLE. Rosita? (Pause - calling out.) Rosita! …

VOICE (off). She’s not here.

MR X. Ah, what a pity!

UNCLE. Such a pity! It’s her saint’s day, so she’ll have gone out to say her forty prayers.

MR X. Please give her this pendant on my behalf. It’s a mother-of-pearl Eiffel Tower over two doves bearing in their beaks the wheel of industry.

UNCLE. She will be grateful to you.

MR X. I was tempted to give her a small silver cannon through whose mouth one could see the Virgin of Lourdes, or Lordes, or a buckle for a belt composed of a serpent and four dragonflies.

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