clickACT THREE SCENE IV
CANTALICIO- From a distance I saw all these dirty tricks the gringos have beon up to with everything. (Looking around). Look at the house!, nothing left to talk about. You'd think they were going to build a whole village on top of it. Nor the oven, nor the well, nor the hitching post. The wretches! And over there, that I will never forgive them. To cut down the peach trees! Elisa planted them, my dead daughter. And every year they used to yield such big fruit. The thieves! The only thing, the only thing of mine that I can still see is that ombú tree. But you, why are they trimming it like that?
PEON- Trimming? It's going to be chopped down. That's we're doing, getting it out.
CANTALICIO- No! No! The ombú tree? Never! They torn down everything because they were the owners, but the ombú does not belong to them. It belongs to the land. By God.
PEON- I think so, too. But the boss says the poor old tree will damage their house.
(Victoria enters, stops to listen)
CANTALICIO- Why don't they build farther on? That's nice talk. Ombús are like the streams or the hills. I have never seen a river covered over to put a house on top of it, nor a mountain torn down to make a grazing land. Murderers! They have no heart. If they had, the'd be wretched at destroying a tree so pretty, so good, so friendly. It's plain, by God, they've never seen one grow, nor had any in their own country.
PEON- Go make them listen to that talk.
CANTALICIO- What can they understand? When you yourselves, it seems impossible, creoles as you are! Lend yourselves to the blasphemy.
PEON- We do as we're told.
CANTALICIO- That doesn't matter. Get cut of here, you worthless scum! You've all sold yourselves. You're all becoming gringos, all of you. I wonder why I came, caramba!, to see so much grief. (...)
FLORENCIO SANCHEZ (18751910)"Teatro para leer: Los muertos"
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