M AY DAY EVE SCRIPT
Narrator: the old people ordered that the dancing should stop at ten pm
OLD PEOPLE: the dancing should be over by 10
Narrator: But… it was almost midnight before the carriages came filing up the departed guest, while the girls who were staying were promptly herded upstairs to the bedroom, the young men gathered around to wish them a good night…
Boy 1: good night seniorita
Girl 2: thank you
Boy 2: but the night is still young
Girl 1: but if the night is as old as you, don’t bother
Narrator: those men proclaiming themselves disconsolate but straight way going off to finish the punch and brandy though they we’re quite drunk already and simply bursting with wild spirits merriment, arrogance and audacity, for they were young bucks newly arrived from Europe, the ball had been in their honor. They waltzed, bragged swaggered all night and where in no mood to sleep yet – no.
Boy 1: ai caramba, not on this moist tropic eve! Not on this mystic may eve!
Boy 2: with the night still young and so seductive that it was madness not to go out, not to go forth—
Boy 3: and serenade the neighbors
Boy 4: and swim in the pasid!
Boy 5: and gather butterflies
Narrator: with those coats capes and canes, a rose a desire among the woman upstairs in the bedroom giggling and screaming on the windows… but soon they were sighing amorously over those young men bawling below, girls admired them because of their handsome apparel, proud flashing eyes, and their elegant moustaches so black and vivid in the moonlight that the girls were quite ravished with love, until old Anastasia plucked them off by the ear or the pigtail and chases them off to bed --- while from the street came the clackety clack of the watchman’s boots on the cobbie and the clang clang of his lantern against his knees and the mighty roll of his voices booming the night.
Wacthman: Guardia serno-o-o! a las doce han dado-o-o-o.
Anastasia: and it was May again, it was the first day of May and witches were abroad in the night, for it was a night of divination and night of lovers and those who cared might peer into a mirrir and would there behold the face of whoever it was they were fated to marry (while picking up the piled clothes)
*the girls are climbing on the bed, slightly shrieking with terror and scrambling over each other…
Girl 1: Enough, enough, enough, Anastasia! We want to sleep!
Girl 2: go scare the boys instead, you old witch!
Girl 3: she is not a witch she is a maga, she is a maga, she was born of Christmas eve!
Girl 4: st. Anastasia, virgin and ,artyr.
Girl 1: huh? Impossible! She has conquered seven husbands! Are you a virgin, Anastasia?
Anastasia: no, but I am seven times a martyr because of you girls!
Girl 2: let her prophesy, let her prophesy! Whom will I marry, old gypsy? Come tell me.
Anastasia: you may learn in a mirror if you’re not afraid
Agueda: I am not afraid, I will go *while jumping up on the bed.
Girl 1: girls, girls---we are making to much noice! My mother will hear and will come and pinch us all! Agueda, lie down! And you Anastasia, I command you to shut your mouth and go away!
Anastasia: your mother told me to stay here all night, my grand lady!
Agueda: and I will not lie DOWN! (leaping to the floor) Stay old woman, tell me what I have to do.
The girls except G1: tell her! Tell her!
Anastasia: (dropped the clothes she gathered approached agueda and looked into her eyes) you must take a candle go into a room that is dark and that has a mirror in it and you must be alone in the room. Go up to the mirror, close your eyes and say. “mirror mirror show to me him whose woman I will be. If all goes right, just above your left shoulder will appear the face of the man you will marry.”
……. (silence)
Agueda; and what if all does not go right?
Anastasia: ah, then the Lord have mercy on you!
Agueda: Why?!
Anastasia: because you may see---the DEVIL!
Girls: (screaaaminggg)
Agueda: But what nonsense!, this is the year 1847. There are no devils anymore! But where could I go? Ah yes! I know! Down to the sala. It has a big mirror and no one is there now!.
Girl 2: No! agueda! No! it’s a mortal sin! You will see the Devil!.
Agueda: I do not care, I am not afraid! I will go!
Anastasia: oh you wicked girl, oh you mad girl!
Girl 1: if you do not come to bed Agueda I will call my mother!
Agueda: and if you do I will tell her who came to visit you at the covenant last March! Come old woman---give me the candle. I go.
Narrator: Agueda was already tiptoeing across the hall, her bare feet and her dark hair falling down her shoulders and streaming in the wind as she fled down the stairs, the lighted candle sputtering on one hand while the other she pulled up her white gown from her ankles. She paused breathless in the doorway to the sala and her heart failed her. She tried to imagine a room full of laughter, her happy place a room alive, but it was a dark den, a weird cavern of windows had been closed and the furniture stacked up against the walls she crossed herself and stepped inside.
The mirror hang before her, an old antique mirror. She saw herself approaching fearfully like a white ghost.
She got close and lifted the candle level with her chin and the dead mask bloomed into her living face.
She closed her eyes. And whispered the incantation. When she finished terror took a hold of her and she was unable to move, unable to open her eyes, she would stand there forever, enchanted but she heard a step behind her and smothered a giggle, and instantly opened her eyes.
Baby Girl: and what did you see mama? Oh what was it?
Narrator: dona agueda had forgotten the little girl on her lap; she was staring pass the curly head nestling at her breast and seing herself in the big mirror hanging in the room. It was the same room and the same mirror but now she saw an old face – a hard bitter, vengeful face, framed in graying hair and so sadly altered, so sadly different from the other face like a white mask that fresh young face like a pure mask than she had brought before this mirror one wild May Day midnight years and years ago…
Baby Girl: but what was it mama? Oh please go on! What did you see?
Donna Agueda: (looked down at her daughter her eyes with tears)… I saw the devil.
(she said bitterly)
Baby Girl: the devil mama? Oh… oh…
Donna Agueda: yes my love!, I opened my eyes there in the mirror smiling over my left shoulder, was the face of the devil.
Baby Girl: oh my poor little mama! And were you very frightened?
Donna Agueda: you can imagine. And that is why good little girls do not look into mirrors except when their mothers tell the,. You must stom this naughty habit, darling, of admiring yourself in every mirror you pass- or you may see something frightful some day.
Baby Girl: but the devil mama, what did he looked like?
Donna Agueda: well… let me see… he has curly hair and a scar on his cheek---
Baby Girl: Like the scar of Papa?
Donna Agueda: wwell, yes but this of the devil was a scar of sin, while that of Papa is a scar of honor. Or so he says.
Baby Girl: go on about the devil mama
Donna Agueda: well he had moustaches
Baby Girl: like those of papa?
Donna Agueda: oh no, those of your papa are dirty and graying and smell horribly of tobacco, while these of the devil were very black and elegant – oh how elegant
Baby Girl: and did he speak to you mama?
Donna Agueda: yes… yes he spoke to me… (bowing her gray head, she wept)
Badoy montiya: Charms like yours have no need ofr a candle fair one. (smiling in the mirror and steping back to give a bow)
Agueda: (glared)
Badong montiya: but I remembered you! You are agueda whom I left a mere infant and came home to find a tremendous beauty, and danced a waltz with you but you would not give me the polka
Agueda: let me pass
Badong montiya: (blocking the way) but I want to dance polka with you fair one
*their panting breaths surround the room* and badong montiya (who had crept home very drunk to pass out quietly in bed) suddenly found himself cold sober and very much awake and ready for anything. His eyes sparkled and the scar on his face gleamed scarlet
Agueda: let me pass!!!! (badong grasped her at the wrist)
Badong Montiya: no, not until we danced
Agueda: go to the devil!!
Badong: what a temper serrana
Agueda: I am not your serrana!
Badong: whose then? Someone I know? Someone I have offended grievously? Because you treat me, you treat all my friends like mortal enemies
Agueda: and why not? (she demanded jerking her wrist away and flashing her teeth in his face)… oh how I detest you, you pompous young men! You go to Europe and you come back elegant lords and we poor girls are too lame to please you. We have no grace like the Parsiennes, we have no fire like the Sevillians, and we have no salt!, no salt!, no salt!! Aiee you weary me, how you bore me, you fastidious men!
Badong: come, come—how do you know about us?
Agueda: I was not admiring myself sir!
Badong: you were admiring the moon perhaps!
Agueda: oh! (gasped) *and she burst into tears, the candle dropped from her hands, she sobbed piteously. The candle had gone out and they stood in the darkness, young badong was conscience-stricken.
Badong: oh do not cry, little one! Oh, please forgive me! Do not cry!, but what a brute am i! I was drunk, little one, I was drunk and knew not what I said (he groped and found her hand and touched it to his lips)
Agueda shuddered in her white gown.
Agueda: let me go, (she moaned and tugged feebly)
Badong: no, say you forgive me first. Say you forgive me Agueda”
*but instead agueda pulled his hand to her mouth and bit it! – bit so sharply in the knuckles that he cried with pain and lashed out and hit the air. For she was gone, she had fled and he heard the rustling of her skirts up the stairs as he furiously sucked his bleeding fingers.
*cruel thoughts came to his mind. But he remembered her bare shoulders, gold in her candlelight and delicately furred he saw the mobile insolence of her neck, and her taut breast steady in the fluid gown, son of a turk! But she was quite enchanting! How could she think she had no fire or grace? And no salt? An arroba she had of it!....
Badong: “…. No lack of salt in the chrism at the moment of thy baptism”
*he sung aloud in the dark room aand suddenly realized that he had fallen madly in love with her he ached to see her again at once to touch her hands andher hair, her harsh voice..
*he run towards the window and flung open the casements and the beauty of the night struck him back like a blow, it was May iw was summer and he young—ypung and deliriously inlove! Such a happiness welled up in him. He would still make her pay, he would still have his revenge, he thought visciously, and kissed his wounded fingers.
Badong: I will not forget this night!!!
*but alas the heart forgets, the heart is distracted and may time passes, summer lends; the storm break over the rot-tipe orchards and the heart grows old; the days, hours months, years piled up; dust gathered, cobwebs multiply; the walls darken and fall into ruin and decay.. memory perished….
*Badong montiya walked home on a May day midnight, without remembering, without even caring to remember. He has grow old.
Unconscious of may night, till on his way down the hall, chancing to glance into the sala, he shuddered, he stopped, his blood ran cold—for he had seen a face in the mirror there--- a ghostly candlelight face with the eyes closed and the lips moving, a face that he suddenly felt he had been there before thought it was a full minutes before the lost memory came flowing, came tiding back, so overflooding the actual moment and so swiftly washing away the piled hours and days and months and years that he was left suddenly young again; he was a gay young buck again, lately came from Europe; he had been dancing all night; he was very drunk; he s stepped in the doorway; he saw a face in the dark; he called out...and the lad standing before the mirror (for it was a lad in a night go jumped with fright and almost dropped his candle, but looking around and seeing the old man, laughed out with relief and came running.
Granchild: Oh Grandpa, how you frightened me.
Don Badong: (turned very pale) So it was you, you young bandit! And what is all this, hey? What are you doing down here at this hour?
Granchild: Nothing, Grandpa. I was only... I am only ..."
Don Badong: Yes, you are the great Señor only and how delighted I am to make your acquaintance, Señor Only! But if I break this cane on your head you maga wish you were someone else, Sir!
Granchild: It was just foolishness, Grandpa. They told me I would see my wife.
Don Badong: Wife? What wife?
Granchild: Mine. The boys at school said I would see her if I looked in a mirror tonight and said: Mirror, mirror show to me her whose lover I will be.
Don Badoy cackled ruefully. He took the boy by the hair, pulled him along into the room, sat down on a chair, and drew the boy between his knees.
Don Badong: Now, put your cane down the floor, son, and let us talk this over. So you want your wife already, hey? You want to see her in advance, hey? But so you know that these are wicked games and that wicked boys who play them are in danger of seeing horrors?
Grandchild: Well, the boys did warn me I might see a witch instead.
Don Badong: Exactly! A witch so horrible you may die of fright. And she will be witch you, she will torture you, she will eat your heart and drink your blood!
Grandchild: Oh, come now Grandpa. This is 1890. There are no witches anymore.
Don Badong: Oh-ho, my young Voltaire! And what if I tell you that I myself have seen a witch.
Grandchild: You? Where?
Don Badong: Right in this room land right in that mirror," said the old man, and his playful voice had turned savage.
Grandchild: When, Grandpa?
Don Badong: Not so long ago. When I was a bit older than you. Oh, I was a vain fellow and though I was feeling very sick that night and merely wanted to lie down somewhere and die I could not pass that doorway of course without stopping to see in the mirror what I looked like when dying. But when I poked my head in what should I see in the mirror but...but...
Grandchild: The witch?
Don Badong: Exactly!
Grandchild: And then she bewitch you, Grandpa!
Don Badong: She bewitched me and she tortured me. l She ate my heart and drank my blood. *he said bitterly*
Grandchild: Oh, my poor little Grandpa! Why have you never told me! And she very horrible?
Don Badong: Horrible? God, no--- she was the most beautiful creature I have ever seen! Her eyes were somewhat like yours but her hair was like black waters and her golden shoulders were bare. My God, she was enchanting! But I should have known---I should have known even then---the dark and fatal creature she was!
…. (A silence. )
Granchild: What a horrid mirror this is, Grandpa,
Don Badong: What makes you slay that, hey?
Grandchild: Well, you saw this witch in it. And Mama once told me that Grandma once told her that Grandma once saw the devil in this mirror. Was it of the scare that Grandma died?
Don Badoy started. For a moment he had forgotten that she was dead, that she had perished---the poor Agueda; that they were at peace at last, the two of them, her tired body at rest; her broken body set free at last from the brutal pranks of the earth---from the trap of a May night; from the snare of summer; from the terrible silver nets of the moon. She had been a mere heap of white hair and bones in the end: a whimpering withered consumptive, lashing out with her cruel tongue; her eye like live coals; her face like ashes... Now, nothing--- nothing save a name on a stone; save a stone in a graveyard---nothing! was left of the young girl who had flamed so vividly in a mirror one wild May Day midnight, long, long ago.
And remembering how she had sobbed so piteously; remembering how she had bitten his hand and fled and how he had sung aloud in the dark room and surprised his heart in the instant of falling in love: such a grief tore up his throat and eyes that he felt ashamed before the boy; pushed the boy away; stood up and looked out----looked out upon the medieval shadows of the foul street where a couple of street-lamps flickered and a last carriage was rattling away upon the cobbles, while the blind black houses muttered hush-hush, their tiled roofs looming like sinister chessboards against a wild sky murky with clouds, save where an evil old moon prowled about in a corner or where a murderous wind whirled, whistling and whining, smelling now of the sea and now of the summer orchards and wafting unbearable the window; the bowed old man sobbing so bitterly at the window; the tears streaming down his cheeks and the wind in his hair and one hand pressed to his mouth---while from up the street came the clackety-clack of the watchman’s boots on the cobbles, and the clang-clang of his lantern against his knee, and the mighty roll of his voice booming through the night:
Watchmen: Guardia sereno-o-o! A las doce han dado-o-o!
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