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of truth, for truth between men is the only purification.
    How is it over the Lobos, Señor Moreno?
    R ANCHER: ( the one nearest the door )Clouded a little.
    J UDGE: Bueno!
    ( catching sight of a flask )
    Drinking inside is forbidden—outside is not my business So let’s get on with what we have come to do.
    You neighbors from Casa Blanca—
    I ask you first to speak concerning your daughter—
    ( facing The Mother )
    You, the mother,
    what do you have to say?
    ( The Mother bows her head. )
    F ATHER: She cannot speak.
    J UDGE: Can you?

    F ATHER: Not like a man with any of his senses.
    J UDGE:
    Then like a man without them, if you will—
    But speak up freely—
    Speak out the broken language of your hearts and we’ll supply the sense where it seems to be needed. ( Chord on guitar )
    F ATHER:
    It is not easy to tell you about our daughter.
    Her name was Elena.
    S ON:
    She had no name for no one here could name her.
    M OTHER: Her name—was Elena.
    S ON:
    Her skeleton, much too elastic, stitched together the two lost frozen blue poles!
    ( A murmur among The Chorus )
    L UISA: The tainted spring—is bubbling.
    F ATHER:
    He means to say she went beyond our fences.
    S ON:
    I mean to say she went beyond all fences.
    The meadow grasses continued entirely too far beyond where the gate
    was broken—in several—places . . .
    L UISA: ( mockingly )Listen—bubbling, bubbling!
    F ATHER: Our son is demented.

    M OTHER: Since the death of our daughter.
    L UISA: The tainted spring—is bubbling!
    ( The Chorus murmur. The Judge raises his hand to warn them. )
    J UDGE: The boy would speak?
    M OTHER: ( quickly )He is not able to speak!
    J UDGE:
    I think he can speak, but in the language of vision.
    Rosalio, would you speak concerning your sister?
    S ON: ( slowly rising )
    Her eyes were always excessively clear in the morning.
    Transparency is a bad omen in very young girls!
    It makes flight
    necessary
    sometimes!
    ( facing his parents )
    You should have bought her the long crystal beads that she wanted . . .
    M OTHER: ( gently, not looking up )
    But how could we know she would have been satisfied with them?
    S ON:
    Oh, I know, Mother,
    you fear that she might have desired
    to discover reflections in them
    of something much farther away
    than those spring freshets she bathed in,
    naked, clasping her groin
    rigidly, with both palms,
    against the cold

    immaculate kiss of snow-water!
    ( The Chorus murmur )
    L UISA: The tainted spring—is bubbling!
    ( The Rancher places a restraining hand on Luisa’s shoulder. )
    F ATHER:
    He means to say she went beyond our fences.
    S ON:
    Beyond all fences, Father.
    She knew also glaciers, intensely blue, valleys, brilliant with sunlight, lemon-yellow, terrific!
    And desolation that stretched too widely apart the white breast-bones of her body!
    L UISA: Bubbling—bubbling!
    ( The Father touches his arm but he continues, facing the door. )
    S ON: ( violently )
    Not even noon’s
    thundering
    statement
    crescendo
    of distance!
    Knocking down walls
    with two
    blue
    brutal
    bare fists
    clenched over quicksilver
    could ever—( tenderly )
    could certainly never—enclose such longing as was my sister’s!

    How much less night, fearlessly stating with stars that breathless inflection—
    Forever?
    ( The wordless singing rises. The wide arched portal that gives on the aquamarine of the desert sky now lightens with a ghostly radiance. Bells toll softly. The guitar weaves a pattern of rapture.
    Rosalio’s sister, Elena of the Springs, steps into the doorway. She wears a sheer white robe and bears white flowers. With slender candle-like fingers she parts the shawl that covers her head and reveals her face. Her lips are smiling. But only The Son Rosalio is aware of the apparition — he and The Guitar Player. The others stare at the Indian woman, Luisa, who rises stiffly from the bench beside The Rancher from Casa Rojo. )
    L UISA: ( clutching her wooden beads )
    You have heard the dead lady compared to mountain