In the Andes: A Play in Two Acts

PLACE: A remote village in the Andes TIME: The present PERSONS : —

PADRE BONIFACIO MENDOZA, a Spanish priest PEDRO, his sacristan JUANITA, an Indian woman FRANCISCO, her son A horde of native Indians of the Aztec tribe

ACT I

(The curtain rises on a scene in the sacristy of a Romanesque church.Through the open door, back, is the interior of the church — the gleam of the red sanctuary lamp, the rail of the sanctuary, a shrine with burning candles in the distance. The sacristy is lighted by large Romanesque windows. A chandelier of ecclesiastical design hangs in the centre. There are chests for the vestments. Eucharistic vessels, a huge monstrance, canopies for the Blessed Sacrament and for statues of saints, banners for processions, vestments, copes, and chasubles lie about or hang from half-open drawers — red, purple, green, white, and cloth of gold. Tall candles, half burned and untrimmed, stand on the vestment chests with thuribles and torches. There is a smell of incense and of stale wine from the cruets. A large table with an enormous inkstand and several books for records and for the Mass is in the centre. Everything is in the rococo style ofecclesiastical art of the eighteenth century, rich in color and very florid, with much gilding, but shabby and worn.

PEDRO, the sacristan, is putting away the vestments. He is a half-breed. He has the face of an Inquisitor. An intense and fiery religious bigot. His lean form is clad in a shabby cassock. He wears sandals on his bare feet. His movements are quick. He crosses himself with profound reverence before he touches any sacred object. In passing the crucifix on the vesting table he bows with ceremony.

In a few moments PADRE BONIFACIO enters. He is an elderly man with a benign expression. He wears a biretta on his gray head, is dressed in a soutane, and carries a cane, walking with a slight limp.)

PEDRO. May the holy Virgin of Guadalupe protect your reverence!

PADRE BONIFACIO (making the sign of the cross). There is grave need.

PEDRO. They no longer come to the holy Sacrifice of the Mass.

PADRE B. A few of the older women only are faithful.

PEDRO. They have departed to the mountains and are working the mines.

PADRE B. The mines?

PEDRO. Yes. For gold.

PADRE B. But the mines are the property of the Church. We are negotiating to sell them to a foreign company.

PEDRO. Yes, your reverence, but Francisco says —

PADRE B. Francisco?

PEDRO. May the pains of Hell get hold upon him!

PADRE B. Francisco! That boy!

PEDRO. Francisco says, your reverence, that the mines belong to the tribe. He says they belonged to the tribe long years ago before the Church came to save them all from the flames of eternal torment. He says the holy Church and the Spanish soldiers robbed the tribe. He says —

PADRE B. Silence! What he says matters nothing. Our mistake was in sending that boy to the United States of North America for an education.

PEDRO. Education is the Devil’s weapon for the destruction of the holy Church.

PADRE B. Nonsense, Pedro; it is also the instrument of God for the saving of souls. Myself was educated in Salamanca at the Seminary that I might do this sacred work in benighted lands.

PEDRO. True, Father, but that was holy education, the education of the Church itself. In the United States of North America it seems they have the Devil’s kind.

PADRE B. Enough! Francisco may be lost through pride of knowledge, but he must not be allowed to draw others into the snare. We must devise means to bring the people back to their duty. We cannot go on with an empty church. What should I say to the Archbishop when he comes for his visitation?

PEDRO (drawing a long knife out from under his cassock). The quickest way would be —

PADRE B. Bah! Thou art a savage, Pedro. Put it by. ‘They that take the sword shall perish with the sword.’

PEDRO (putting back the knife, mumbling). This is not a sword.

PADRE B. (seating himself at the table and opening one of the large books). I shall think of a way. (The clangor of a house bell sounds in the distance.) See who that may be.

(PEDRO goes out through a door to the right which leads to the priest’s residence, He returns presently alone.)

PEDRO. It is Juanita, your reverence, Francisco’s mother. She would talk with you.

PADRE B. Let her come in here. But stay you here the while. I see no woman alone in the sacristy.

PEDRO. Your reverence is wise.

(PEDRO goes out and returns with JUANITA. She is an Indian woman dressed in the native costume, with a serape over her head; not old, and with a superior bearing. The padre has risen and is standing in the middle of the stage. She kneels and kisses his hand. As she rises the faint sound of an Indian tomtom is heard in the distance. This sound very gradually draws nearer; later on, up to the end of the act can be heard in addition to it the sounds of other Indian instruments, with occasional singing and laughter as of a large group of Indians holding a festa in the plaza in front of the church.)

PADRE B. For what purpose do you come, my daughter?

JUANITA. My son, Francisco!

PADRE B. Your son Francisco has raised a revolt against the Church.

PEDRO. He has taken all the men and carried off every girl in the village.

JUANITA. My boy, Francisco —

PADRE B. The headmen of the tribe have elected him chief.

PEDRO. He calls himself the Inca and denies the worship of the true God.

JUANITA. His education in the United States of North America —

PADRE B. He has become a blasphemer, an atheist. He has brought it

about that even to-day, Ash Wednesday, not a soul attended the holy Sacrifice or received the ashes on his forehead.

PEDRO. He is the enemy of God. A Judas. He deserves to die.

JUANITA. He is young, Padre Bonifacio. You will deal gently with him?

PADRE B. When does the holy Church not deal gently with its enemies? Let him repent.

PEDRO. They have seized the mines and are working out the gold.

PADRE B. Let him confess his sins and do penance publicly.

JUANITA. You once were young yourself, Padre Bonifacio —

PADRE B. Silence, woman; that was long ago.

PEDRO. They treat him as though he were a god. They bring him all the gifts. He deserves to die.

JUANITA. DO you speak of death, you dog? He will answer for himself.

(The sounds of music and singing outside have given way to shouts and, laughter. FRANCISCO comes running in through the door of the church. He is laughing. FRANCISCO is a youth. He is of a light copper color, with handsome features and straight black hair. He is dressed in a perfectly fitting suit of American cut, dark blue serge, and, wears shoes, but over one shoulder is a scarlet serape and around his head is a band of beaded gold set with semiprecious stones. A single feather is stuck at an angle in the band. He is half savage, half civilized, and evidently a half-breed.

At the sight of his mother FRANCISCO stops his laughter, looks searchingly at the priest and then at her. Deliberately; suspiciously.)

FRANCISCO. Pardon me. Do I interrupt?

PADRE B. Why did you not remain in the United States of North America? Or now, having visited your mother here, why do you not go back again to your studies?

FRANCISCO. There was no greatness for me there.

PADRE B. NO greatness?

FRANCISCO. My race. My color. In the United States of North America to be dark-skinned is to be an outcast, scarcely human, without a chance with other men. They called me a colored man, a nigger, a damned nigger. Me, with the blood of the Incas in my veins!

PADRE B. But that is a great country — very rich, very powerful. Here there is nothing but the hills.

FRANCISCO. Better a king of a small tribe than a slave in a great state.

PEDRO. King! (Increased noise outside.)

PADRE B. But surely the advantages of a high civilization, the white bread, the culture—

FRANCISCO. Civilization? The narrow streets and buildings like the sides of cañons. Crowded with a selfish, grasping mob, milling like a stampeded herd of swine. The blaze of electric lights and shrieking signs. The rush of motor cars giving out an evil smell, poisoning the very air. Women painted like our braves in time of war — almost as naked. The packed multitudes of slaves working day and night in factories, without freedom, without gayety. The envy, dishonesty, crookedness, and strife. The haughty pride of the rich. The canting ignorance of the masses. The noise and roaring clangor of the hateful streets. — Here at least there is silence in the night of stars. And the clean, free air.

PEDRO. But at least you wear the white man’s clothes.

FRANCISCO (grinning). Ah, well, the habits of four years are not so easily broken. But it is nothing. (He strips off his coat and throws it on the table. He has nothing on underneath.)

PADRE B. For modesty, no more.

JUANITA. Put it on again. I like you better so. (She helps him put on the coat.)

FRANCISCO (laughing). In this high altitude it is comfortable. I became tender in the United States of North America.

PADRE B. But now that you have come back to us, Francisco, surely it is not right for you to influence the people here to leave their religion. You have drawn the whole tribe away from the Church. No one longer attends the holy mysteries.

FRANCISCO. Why should they not leave the Church? They had a most beautiful religion of their own centuries before the Church came here. They were then prosperous and happy. The Church has done nothing for them. Your Pizarro and his Conquistadores enslaved them. The Church burned all who did not submit to its authority. You have kept us in ignorance and debased us with fables for four hundred years. It is time we became free.

PADRE B. Surely you did not learn this in a civilized Christian land?

FRANCISCO. That is exactly what I did learn. The professors at the university laughed at the fables of Adam and Eve, the creation of the world in six days, the talking serpent, the folly of miracles of saints. Only the ignorant masses still cling to such childish ways. In free countries the welfare of mankind is the only feature of religion that remains for the intelligent. If my people are to rise, they must be freed from old superstitions that make a future Heaven the only thing to live for. They must learn to live now, here in this world, first. You are three centuries behind the time, Father Bonifacio.

PADRE B. Blasphemous heresies! Is there no God?

FRANCISCO. A Supreme Being. A First Cause. The Inscrutable Absolute. Of course. And, if you like, some outward and visible symbols of divine beauty and divine power. The sun, for instance. My ancestors worshiped the sun. Or a man, a man with the light of God within. An Inca, let us say.

PEDRO. Sacred Virgin! A man!

PADRE B. The Church will flourish, boy, when you are dust. The gates of Hell shall not prevail against it. We shall find means to draw the people back to the holy faith. We can afford to be patient, forgiving. But you have seized the mines. The government will have something to say to that.

FRANCISCO. Government? Which government? When I landed a few weeks back there were three revolutions going on and three different governments among you Spaniards. They will have little time in all these revolutions to send forces up to this remote place. Besides, your people stole the mines from us. They are ours.

PADRE B. Nonsense, boy. It was the conquest of a higher civilization.

FRANCISCO. A higher civilization? Why, I read in the books at the university library something different. We had a civilization a thousand years before your Columbus sailed from Spain. Your grasping soldiers armed with better weapons stole our gold. Is civilization a matter of weapons? I do not believe it. Or, if it is true, then the tribe is better off in that respect than you.

PEDRO (draws his knife and springs at FRANCISCO,shouting). You are mad! Let him die like a dog!

(JUANITAintercepts him, seizing his wrist. FRANCISCO leaps lightly to the top of the table. He claps his hands and shouts. A crowd of Indians rush in.

They are a debased, evil-looking lot, of various shades of color and in the semicivilized garb of savages in South America. They swarm around the table.)

FRANCISCO. All these things are yours, friends.

(The band brush PEDRO and the priest aside and begin to pillage the sacristy. They load themselves up with the holy objects. Some try on the vestments awkwardly. Others dispute and tear them. There is great laughter and confusion.)

[CURTAIN]

ACT II

(Six weeks later. Good Friday. The curtain rises on a scene of the plaza before the great doors of the church. A flight of steps leads to the doors, which are closed. The façade of the church, crumbling, patched, and broken, is in the usual Romanesque style. A campanile with bells. Palm trees edge the scene. Distant mountains show behind the church. One or two crude benches in the plaza. Dazzling sunshine over all. It is morning of a hot day in the tropics.

Standing before the church doors are PADRE BONIFACIO and PEDRO. The priest is leaning on his cane. Both look dejected.)

PADRE B. Good Friday, and not a soul comes to church. My thirty years of teaching and labor lost!

PEDRO. Francisco is the only god they worship now.

PADRE B. It was easy for them to fall back into idolatry again. And yet after so many years —

PEDRO. They will miss the ceremonies. How they enjoyed the beating of the images, the crucifixion, the blood and wounds!

PADRE B. They bring us no offerings. It is we whom they crucify by their neglect.

PEDRO. He has become their god.

PADRE B. The ancient pagan Aztecs worshiped the sun. It is well known. And for that reason they go to the height every morning.

PEDRO. They worship him also. I have seen. And doubtless to-day they will claim the church.

PADRE B. Sacrilege! The abomination of desolation. It must not be.

PEDRO. The headmen desire it. I have talked with them. The church for a teocalli, they say. Formerly they had temples.

PADRE B. I have locked the doors (holding up the huge key).

PEDRO. It will not matter. They will force your hand.

PADRE B. In the sacred Scripture it is written: ‘Resist not evil.’ If they come, we must give way.

PEDRO. The Holy Virgin may provide some other plan.

(Enter JUANITA.)

JUANITA. I have done what I could. He will not listen to reason. They insist upon using the church to-day.

PADRE B. In the United States of North America it seems that children no longer respect even their parents’ wishes.

JUANITA. He has many arguments. I cannot prevail with him.

PADRE B. God will prevail, my daughter. The gates of Hell shall not prevail against us.

JUANITA. They are coming in great state and pomp. He is their high priest, their god. Do not anger them, my father; they have power.

(Far off the sound of a horn is heard, a crude instrument made of a mountain goat’s horn. It gives but one note. Then follows the sound of the tom-toms and singing growing nearer and nearer. Other crude instruments, Indian flutes among them.)

PEDRO. They are coming. I can see them winding up the hill.

JUANITA. They must not find me here. But, remembe,. Father, do not deal harshly with the boy.

PADRE B. The true religion is never harsh, Juanita.

(Exit JUANITA.)

PEDRO. Let us meet them with courage at the church door.

(They take their stand on the steps. The procession appears, winding in from the side of the church. It is a religious procession, half Catholic, half pagan. FRANCISCO has made an attempt to train the tribe in the traditions of the ancient Aztec rites as described by Prescott or Markham.

The Indians have abandoned all traces of the modern Spanish dress and wear vividly colored robes, headdresses of feathers, many gold ornaments. The old men as priests. There are torch bearers and boys swaying thuribles. Flower girls strew flowers. FRANCISCO himself is dressed almost completely in gold plate, though much of his body is bare, and he wears an enormous crown of feathers held in a gold band. He walks wider a canopy — one of the spoils of the looted sacristy. This is of white silk fringed with gold, formerly used to cover the Blessed, Sacrament in processions. It is carried by four men. A band of halfclad girls cluster about him. The instruments play a wild, monotonous accompaniment to the singing. They sing as they enter.)

THE INDIANS.

Oh, come, then,

Great as the heavens,

Lord of all the earth.

Ten times I adore thee,

Ever with my eyes Turned to the ground,

Hidden by the eyelashes,

Thee am I seeking.

Oh, look on me! Like as for the rivers,

Like as for the fountains,

When gasping with thirst,

I seek for thee.

Encourage me,

Help me!

With all my voice I call on thee;

Thinking of thee We will rejoice And be glad.

This will we say And no more,¹

(The procession has filled the plaza as the song ceases. FRANCISCO gives the sign to break ranks. The canopy is folded up and taken back. The crowd breaks into groups; some sit on the church steps, some on the benches; and some squat or lie on the ground. FRANCISCO stands well in front, the others at a respectful distance. He turns toward the padre and the sacristan and summons them forward. They come to him.)

FRANCISCO. Well, how do you like our music, Father? As well as the Ave Maris Stella? I like it better.

PADRE B. Are you not ashamed — you, a mere man—to receive divine honors from these poor benighted people?

FRANCISCO. Why should I be ashamed? Am I not better than one of the carved and painted wooden images you have taught them to bow down to?

PEDRO. Idolatry!

FRANCISCO. Nonsense, Pedro, my elder brother. There must be some little idolatry in every true religion. How else shall men visualize the unseen God? And a living man is better than a lifeless image.

PADRE B. You to pose as God with all these young girls clinging about your steps!

FRANCISCO. Why is it that old people are always so suspicious of the young? Why, these are the Vestal Virgins (laughing).

PEDRO. Monstrous!

FRANCISCO. But we have come, Father, to hold our little annual sacrifice. We must use the church. The ancient ritual prescribes a temple. See, here are the sacrilices. (He points to the baskets of flowers and fruits.)

PADRE B. In this temple we worship only the true God who died for us this day upon the Cross. I commit the key to Pedro. You may force him to let you in, but I refuse consent as I refuse to bow down to you. (Exit.)

(PEDRO snatches up the key, which PADRE B. has thrown on the ground, and rushes to the steps of the church. He is intensely excited, but begins to speak at first with some control.)

PEDRO. Listen, all of you. Here is Francisco come back from the United States of North America where he has been educated. He has taught you many things. Now he has come demanding the church for the sacrifice. Very well. We shall give him the church. But mind you, to-day is Good Friday. You have always worshiped in this church on this day a God who died for you upon the Cross. (He makes the sign of the cross and the natives involuntarily imitate him.) That God you worshiped was a great God. He came down from Heaven. He was born of the Virgin Mary. He died on the Cross. They scourged him with whips, and with whips with leaded tips. The whips cut his flesh. The blood ran down in streams. They crowned him with the crown of thorns. The thorns pricked his head. The blood ran down his face.

(The Indians are becoming more and more excited, more and more sympathetic

with PEDRO’Swords, when FRANCISCO springs to the steps.)

FRANCISCO. All very true, my friends. But that was long ago. Moreover it was a brutal murder. He did not wish to die. Shame to those who put him to death!

PEDRO. Francisco wants the church. We will give him the church. But is he such a god? Can he also die and rise again from the dead? The blows did not hurt our God! He was a true God. He did not feel the pain. For the joy that was set before him he endured the Cross, despising the shame. He loved to die and rise again. Can Francisco die and rise again? If so, of course he should have the church. We will all worship him. He will be the risen God. Dead first and then risen.

FRANCISCO. But I am not a god who teaches death. I teach life. The glory of the sun, the splendor of the sky, the daring of the hunt, the value of the mines. You have learned these from me. It is better to live than to die. Every man must die, but all do not rise so soon. Our religion is for life, not death. (He falters and is at a disadvantage with PEDRO’Ssharp theology.)

PEDRO (exultantly). Our God died first and then was worshiped. It is Good Friday. The blood ran down his back. The blood was over his face. Bright red blood! They struck him with their fists. They spat in his face. He did not care at all. It did not hurt him. He was God. He could die and rise again. They nailed him to the Cross. The nails pierced his hands and feet. The blood ran down to the ground. They pierced his side with a spear. Water and blood ran out. He felt no pain for the joy that was set before him. He could rise from the dead.

(The crowd has become increasingly excited and persuaded. They first murmur, then speak out louder and louder.)

THE CROWD.

Crucified!

The blood!

Let us crucify Francisco and see

him rise!

He will rise from the dead!

Let us beat him with cactus!

Let us nail him to the cross!

Let us crown him with thorns!

It is good medicine!

He is a god! He will rise from the

dead!

Crucify him!

Let him be crucified!

(The crowd presses in more and more threateningly upon FRANCISCO. Some attempt to seize him. He shakes them off.)

FRANCISCO. One moment, friends. If you say that I must die, then I will die. But I will die like a brave. I will die like a king. I will die like a god. I do not fear to die. I — shall — rise—again. Pedro, you have won. Your religion of death and darkness is stronger than mine. I die. Take this gold. You may need it. I forgive you, my brother. You know not what you do.

(The crowd surge up, brandishing their spears and clubs. PEDRO opens the great doors of the ch urch. They swarm in with shouts. The doors are shut. Fromwithin the church come sounds of hammering,loud cries— ‘Let him be crucified!' ’He will rise again!’ Darkness, the darkness of a tropical storm,gradually comes on. Low rumbles of thunder sound in the distance. Then complete silence in the church.

Enter PADRE B. and JUANITA.)

PADRE B. They have gone into the church.

JUANITA. They are offering the sacrifice.&emdashHe will, of course, get over this foolishness about a new religion — after a while.

PADRE B. You think so?

JUANITA. Why, yes. Youth does such foolish things. Do you remember how he smiled as a babe?

(It grows very dark.)

PADRE B. How long they are with these new-old rites! They will be caught in the storm.

(There is a great zigzag of lightning. The doors of the church are flung wide open. PEDRO appears. Behind him the church is lighted with many candles. The crowd is kneeling in prayer. The naked body of FRANCISCO is seen hanging dead on the great cross.)

PEDRO. ‘It is finished!’

PADRE B. My God! My son!

[CURTAIN]