The House of Bernarda Alba
Páginas: 19 (4631 palabras)
Publicado: 26 de marzo de 2012
SERVANT: I can feel the tolling of those bells right between my temples.
LA PONCIA: (She enters eating bread and sausage) They’ve been making that row for more than two hours now. There are priests here from all the villages. The church looks lovely. During the first response Magdalena fainted.
SERVANT: She’s the one who’ll be most bereft.
LA PONCIA: She was the only one who loved herfather. Ay! Thank God we’re alone for a while! I was hungry.
SERVANT: If Bernarda could see you…!
LA PONCIA: Now she’s not eating, she wants us all to die of hunger! So strict! So domineering! But hard luck! I’ve opened the sausage jar.
SERVANT: (Sadly, with longing) Poncia, won’t you give me some for my little girl?
LA PONCIA: Go on, and take a handful of chick-peas too. Shewon’t notice it, today!
VOICE: (From within) Bernarda!
LA PONCIA: The old woman. Is she locked in?
SERVANT: Two turns of the key.
LA PONCIA: You should use the bolt too. She’s got fingers like picklocks.
VOICE: Bernarda!
LA PONCIA: (Shouting) She’s coming! (To the Servant) Make sure the whole place is clean. If Bernarda doesn’t find everything gleaming she’ll pull out the littlehair I have left.
SERVANT: What a woman!
LA PONCIA: Tyrant of all she surveys. She could squat on your chest for a year and watch you die slowly without wiping that cold smile from her cursed face! Clean those pots: go on!
SERVANT: My hands are red raw from endless cleaning.
LA PONCIA: She’s the cleanest; she’s the most decent; she’s the loftiest of beings. Her poor husbanddeserves a good rest.
(The bells cease ringing.)
SERVANT: Are all the relatives here?
LA PONCIA: On her side. His family detests her. They came to make sure he was dead, and make the sign of the cross.
SERVANT: Are there enough chairs?
LA PONCIA: Plenty. Let them sit on the floor. Since Bernarda’s father died no one has set foot inside these walls. She doesn’t want them to see her inher stronghold! Curse her!
SERVANT: She’s always been good to you.
LA PONCIA: For thirty years I’ve laundered her sheets; for thirty years I’ve eaten her leftovers; spent nights awake when she had a cough; whole days peering through the cracks to spy on the neighbours and bring her the news; there are no secrets between us, and yet I curse her! May needles prick out her eyes!
SERVANT:Woman!
LA PONCIA: But I’m a good bitch and bark when I’m told, and bite the heels of the beggars when she whips me on; my sons work her fields and they’re both married too, but one day I’ll have had enough.
SERVANT: And then…
LA PONCIA: Then I’ll lock myself in a room with her, and spit on for her a year. ‘Bernarda, here’s for this, and that, and the other,’ until she looks like alizard the children squashed, because that’s what she is, and all her family. But I don’t envy her life, that’s for sure. She’s five women on her hands, five ugly daughters. Except for Angustias, the eldest, who’s the first husband’s daughter and has some money, the rest of them have lots of fine lace, and linen camisoles, but their only inheritance is bread and water.
SERVANT: I wouldn’t mindhaving what they have!
LA PONCIA: We have our hands, and we’ll have a hole in God’s earth.
SERVANT: That’s the only earth they’ll give us, who have nothing.
LA PONCIA: (By the cupboard) This glass has marks on it.
SERVANT: They won’t come off even with soap and water.
(The bells sound.)
LA PONCIA: The final prayers. I’m off to hear them. I love the priest’s singing. In thepaternoster his voice rose up, and up, and up like a pitcher slowly filling with water. Of course at the end he gave a screech, but it was a glory to hear him! There’s no one these days to match the old sexton, Tronchapinos. He sang at the Mass for my mother, who is in glory. The walls would shake, and when he said Amen it was if a wolf was in church. (Imitating him) Ameeeen! (She begins...
LA PONCIA: (She enters eating bread and sausage) They’ve been making that row for more than two hours now. There are priests here from all the villages. The church looks lovely. During the first response Magdalena fainted.
SERVANT: She’s the one who’ll be most bereft.
LA PONCIA: She was the only one who loved herfather. Ay! Thank God we’re alone for a while! I was hungry.
SERVANT: If Bernarda could see you…!
LA PONCIA: Now she’s not eating, she wants us all to die of hunger! So strict! So domineering! But hard luck! I’ve opened the sausage jar.
SERVANT: (Sadly, with longing) Poncia, won’t you give me some for my little girl?
LA PONCIA: Go on, and take a handful of chick-peas too. Shewon’t notice it, today!
VOICE: (From within) Bernarda!
LA PONCIA: The old woman. Is she locked in?
SERVANT: Two turns of the key.
LA PONCIA: You should use the bolt too. She’s got fingers like picklocks.
VOICE: Bernarda!
LA PONCIA: (Shouting) She’s coming! (To the Servant) Make sure the whole place is clean. If Bernarda doesn’t find everything gleaming she’ll pull out the littlehair I have left.
SERVANT: What a woman!
LA PONCIA: Tyrant of all she surveys. She could squat on your chest for a year and watch you die slowly without wiping that cold smile from her cursed face! Clean those pots: go on!
SERVANT: My hands are red raw from endless cleaning.
LA PONCIA: She’s the cleanest; she’s the most decent; she’s the loftiest of beings. Her poor husbanddeserves a good rest.
(The bells cease ringing.)
SERVANT: Are all the relatives here?
LA PONCIA: On her side. His family detests her. They came to make sure he was dead, and make the sign of the cross.
SERVANT: Are there enough chairs?
LA PONCIA: Plenty. Let them sit on the floor. Since Bernarda’s father died no one has set foot inside these walls. She doesn’t want them to see her inher stronghold! Curse her!
SERVANT: She’s always been good to you.
LA PONCIA: For thirty years I’ve laundered her sheets; for thirty years I’ve eaten her leftovers; spent nights awake when she had a cough; whole days peering through the cracks to spy on the neighbours and bring her the news; there are no secrets between us, and yet I curse her! May needles prick out her eyes!
SERVANT:Woman!
LA PONCIA: But I’m a good bitch and bark when I’m told, and bite the heels of the beggars when she whips me on; my sons work her fields and they’re both married too, but one day I’ll have had enough.
SERVANT: And then…
LA PONCIA: Then I’ll lock myself in a room with her, and spit on for her a year. ‘Bernarda, here’s for this, and that, and the other,’ until she looks like alizard the children squashed, because that’s what she is, and all her family. But I don’t envy her life, that’s for sure. She’s five women on her hands, five ugly daughters. Except for Angustias, the eldest, who’s the first husband’s daughter and has some money, the rest of them have lots of fine lace, and linen camisoles, but their only inheritance is bread and water.
SERVANT: I wouldn’t mindhaving what they have!
LA PONCIA: We have our hands, and we’ll have a hole in God’s earth.
SERVANT: That’s the only earth they’ll give us, who have nothing.
LA PONCIA: (By the cupboard) This glass has marks on it.
SERVANT: They won’t come off even with soap and water.
(The bells sound.)
LA PONCIA: The final prayers. I’m off to hear them. I love the priest’s singing. In thepaternoster his voice rose up, and up, and up like a pitcher slowly filling with water. Of course at the end he gave a screech, but it was a glory to hear him! There’s no one these days to match the old sexton, Tronchapinos. He sang at the Mass for my mother, who is in glory. The walls would shake, and when he said Amen it was if a wolf was in church. (Imitating him) Ameeeen! (She begins...
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