Read Online Three Plays: The Young Lady from Tacna, Kathie and the Hippopotamus, La Chunga by Mario Vargas Llosa - Free Book Online

packet of sugar I’d hidden back in the kitchen cupboard. That was the third little piece of deception, father.
    BELISARIO: You are too proud, my child.
    MAMAE: There’s nothing wrong with that. It’s not a sin to be proud.
    ( In the course of the conversation the physical relationship between them has gradually been changing. MAMAE is now in the position she habitually adopts when she tells stories to BELISARIO as a young child .)
    BELISARIO: I think it is, Mamaé. Brother Leoncio said the other day in the catechism class that pride was the worst sin of all. That it was Lucifer’s favourite.
    MAMAE: All right, perhaps it is. But as far as the young lady from Tacna was concerned, it was pride that made her life bearable, you see? It gave her the strength to put up with the disappointments, the loneliness, and all that privation. Without pride she would have suffered a great deal. Besides, it was all she had.
    BELISARIO: I don’t know why you rate pride so highly. If she loved her fiancé, and he asked her to forgive him for being unfaithful to her with the wicked woman, wouldn’t she have been better off just to forgive him and marry him? What use was all this pride to her? After all, she ended up an old spinster, didn’t she?
    MAMAE: You’re very young and you don’t understand. Pride is the most important thing a person can have in life. It protects you against everything. Once you lose it, whether
you’re a man or a woman, the world tramples on you like an old rag.
    BELISARIO: But this isn’t a story. It’s more like a sermon, Mamaé. Things have got to happen in stories. And you never give me nearly enough details. For instance, did the young lady have any nasty secret habits?
    MAMAE: ( Frightened, getting to her feet ) No, of course she didn’t. (More frightened still ) Nasty … what did you say? ( Horrified ) Nasty what? Nasty whats?
    BELISARIO: ( Ashamed ) I said nasty secret thoughts, Mamaé. Didn’t the young lady ever have any nasty secret thoughts?
    MAMAE: ( Sympathetically, as she slips awkwardly back to her armchair ) You’re the one whose head is full of nasty secret thoughts, my little one.
    ( She curls up in her armchair. The GRANDPARENTS and AMELIA, unaware of what’s happening , carry on eating. BELISARIO has started to write again. He talks as he makes notes on his papers. )
    BELISARIO: Yes, Mamaé. It’s true. I can’t help thinking that, underneath that unworldly façade, behind that serene expression, there was an infinite source of warmth and passion which would suddenly well up and make demands on the young lady. Or was there really nothing else besides the austere routine of her daily life?
    ( He stops writing. He turns to look at MAMAE. He addresses her with a certain pathos .)
    When I was a child, I never imagined you could ever have been anything other than a little old woman. Even now, when I try to picture you in your youth, I can’t. The young girl you once were always gives way to the old woman with the wrinkled face. In spite of all these stories, I’m still all at sea about the young lady. What happened to her after she burnt her wedding dress and left the Chilean officer in the lurch?
    ( As BELISARIO finishes his speech, GRANDMOTHER gets up from the table and goes over towards MAMAE. GRANDFATHER and AMELIA carry on eating, unaware of
what follows. From time to time GRANDFATHER throws salt over his food in a sort of frenzy .)
    GRANDMOTHER: Why haven’t you packed your suitcases, Elvirita? Pedro wants to leave at dawn so that we arrive at the docks before it gets too hot. We don’t want to catch sunstroke, specially you, with that fair skin of yours. (Pause.) You know, deep down, I’m glad we’re leaving. When my mother died after that dreadful illness, it was almost as if Tacna were starting to die too. And now what with my father’s death, I find this town really has quite a disagreeable effect on me. Let’s go and pack your suitcases. I’ll help you.
    MAMAE: