Sister Pilar: They say there was once a giant, so strong that he could have lifted the Sierra Morena and placed them on the Pyrenees, but one day he happened on a little stone no bigger than my nail, but so firmly was it embedded in the ground that all his mighty strength availed him nothing to make it budge an inch.
Sister Assumcion: And that little stone is the sin of a religious?
Sister Pilar (with a shrug): Give it whatever meaning tallies with your humour. (She opens a book and begins to read it.)
Sister Assumcion (yawning): I’m hungry. Shall I send Zuleica to beg some marzipan from the Cellaress, or shall I possess my soul and belly in patience until dinner-time?
First Nun (jocosely): For shame! Gluttony is one of the deadly sins, is it not, Sister Pilar?
Sister Pilar keeps her eyes fixed on her book without answering. Jaime Rodriguez enters by door to left. Flutter among nuns.
Jaime Rodriguez: Christ and His Mother be with you, my daughters. (Sits down and mops his brow.) ’Tis wondrous cool and pleasant in your court. (He gives a shy glance at Sister Pilar, but she continues to keep her eyes on her book. Turns to fourth nun.) Well, daughter, and what of the cope you promised me?
Second Nun (holding up her embroidery): See! It wants but three more roses and one swan.
Jaime Rodriguez (with another glance in the direction of Sister Pilar): And do you know of what the swan is the figure? In that, flying from man, it makes its dwelling in wild, solitary haunts, St. Gregory of Nazianus holds that it figures the anchorite, and truly....
Sister Pilar (suddenly looking up, and smiling a little): But what of its love of the lyre and all secular songs, by which it is wont to be lured to its destruction from its most secret glens? I have read that this same failing has led some learned doctors to look upon it as a figure of the soul of man, drawn hither and thither by the love of vain things.