JosÉ Peon y Contreras was born at Merida, Yucatan, January 12, 1843, being son of Juan Bautista Peon and MarÍa del Pilar Contreras. Studying medicine in his native city, he received the degree of M.D., at the age of nineteen years. In 1863, he went to the City of Mexico and saying nothing of his earlier course, again went through the medical curriculum. By competition, he obtained an appointment in the Hospital de Jesus; in 1867, he was Director of the San HipÓlito Hospital for the Insane; for several years he was in charge of public vaccination for the city.

Giving his leisure to letters, JosÉ Peon y Contreras soon gained high rank as a lyric poet and a dramatist. He had already entered the field of letters before leaving Merida. His first effort was La Cruz del Paredon, a fantastic legend, printed when its author was eighteen years of age. A volume of Poesias (Poems) appeared in 1868. In Mexico, in 1871 he printed, in the paper, El Domingo (Sunday) a collection of Romances historicos Mexicanos (Mexican Historical Romances), in which he dealt with Aztec themes and actors. These have merit, but are little known. The field of JosÉ Peon y Contreras’s greatest triumphs is the, in Mexico, much neglected drama. In 1876 he published his Hasta el cielo (Unto Heaven), a drama in prose, which was a great success. It was rapidly followed by others, mostly in verse. On May 7, 1876, La hija del Rey (The Daughter of the King) being presented, the writers of Mexico presented the author of the piece a gold pen and a Diploma of Honor signed by all. AgÜeros says of JosÉ Peon y Contreras that he is to be compared with JosÉ Echegary. He is of “marvellous dramatic talent; profound knowledge of the human heart; his descriptions are paintings; his dialogue is natural, sound, and moral. His faults are claimed to be similarity of argument and absence of certain dramatic resources, showing lack of originality.”

In 1880, he published Romances dramaticos (Dramatic Romances), in which he presents fourteen brief, rapid sketches, each of them capable of expansion into a drama. In 1881 he published Trovas Columbinas (Columbian Metres), lyrical poems dealing with Columbus and his discovery. In 1883, a volume of poems, Ecos (Echoes) was published in New York. Two novels by our author Taide and Veleidosa, have been well received, the latter being, perhaps, the favorite.

JosÉ Peon y Contreras at one time represented Yucatan in the lower house of Congress; later, in 1875, he was Senator for the same State. He has recently been a Deputy for the State of Nuevo LÉon.

HASTA EL CIELO!

The scene is laid in the City of Mexico; the time is the seventeenth century. The play is in three acts and is written in prose. The selections are from Act III. The action takes place at Sancho’s house. Sancho is the private secretary of the Viceroy; he is passing under an assumed name and is seeking vengeance against the Viceroy, who does not know his identity, for his father’s death and his mother’s dishonor. Blanca, supposed to be the Viceroy’s ward, is in reality his daughter; this Sancho knows and gains her love, with the intention of making her dishonor the Viceroy’s disgrace. To escape a hated suitor, Blanca, trusting to Sancho’s pretended love, has left her father’s house and taken refuge with Sancho. The Viceroy, distracted seeks her. Ultimately, the true love, which Sancho would give her, proves impossible.

SCENE IV.

Blanca: Sancho!

Sancho: Ah, Blanca—what is the matter?

B.: Nothing; nothing; how happy I am to find you here.

S.: Did you not sleep?

B.: No. I could not. Slumber fled from my eyes.

S.: Why? Are you not here secure? What do you fear? Have I not told you——?

B.: In vain I seek repose. My agitated spirit wakes; my afflicted soul recalls the past and trembles for the future. There are moments, when I feel that I shall go mad!

S.: You tremble, are cold—Blanca, calm yourself.

B.: The memory of this misfortune haunts me.

S.: You still insist——!

B.: You attempt to conceal it from me, in vain.... Last night I overheard, when Fortun announced to you the death of this—of this marquis.

S.: Well! What of that?—Man’s days are numbered. His hour of punishment arrives.

B.: Moreover, I can not conceal it from you, Sancho; the passing moments seem to me eternities.—We cannot continue living thus.—It is necessary that God should sanctify this union.

S.: Soon—very soon.

B.: This is not my house. Much as I love you, much as I have sacrificed my dignity upon the altar of this love, I cannot be tranquil. I feel something here, in my breast, of which I had no idea before,—and—you see, I cannot venture to raise my eyes in your presence.—The blush, which inflames my cheek, is the shame of guilt——

S.: You, guilty——?

B.: Just the same!—What am I, here?—When I am alone no one beholds me, but I would even hide me from myself.—If, in snatching me from my home, you have taken advantage of my love, do not sport with my weakness.

S.: Blanca, God reads our hearts——

B.: Yes, and because God reads them, I implore you, once for all, to end this situation. What is past is as the image of a fearful dream.—To have dreamed it alone had seemed to me impossible. Cruel! this is very cruel!—Your very presence is enough to humiliate me—and I could not live without your presence!—I would desire that looking at you my heart should beat with joy. I wish to feel that which I have always felt at seeing you! that which I felt before!—Why turn your face away? Why does your stern and sombre glance uneasily conceal itself beneath your lids, and why do you not look at me as heretofore?

S.: Blanca, you suspect——

B.: No, I do not suspect; I believe. I confess it frankly.... Love is born and grows slowly, but it may die in a single instant!—Mine is the guilt.

S.: Cease.—Do you not see that you are lacerating my soul?

B.: Listen! At night you slept—I watched! I shuddered, for presently I heard your voice, as if distant, broken and tremulous—you were speaking as if an enormous rock weighed down upon your breast——

S.: You are right—it was so——!

B.: You uttered crushing words,—words of vengeance—of dishonor—of love!

S.: Also of love!

B.: Among those words, which issued as if drawn from the innermost places of your heart, and which escaped from your lips like an echo—I heard my name.—What was this, Sancho?—Tell me.

S.: A dream!—an awful nightmare! I know not whether I dreamed. I know not whether I was awake. I saw you, Blanca, humiliated, degraded, vile,—— ... and in this fearful struggle between my love and my vengeance——

B.: Your vengeance!

S.: You do not know what that is! Grief wrung my soul; I felt madness in my brain; despair sprung up in my heart as the tempest in the black centre of the storm-cloud and a torrent of blasphemies and prayers broke from my lips.

B.: Sancho! But you are still delirious!

S.: No, Blanca; no, my poor Blanca—Now, I am not delirious; no! but I believe indeed, I shall go mad. There still continues, in my soul, a frightful combat—here I feel the battle, fierce, desperate,—mortal. Go—recover yourself.—Leave me alone!

B.: Sancho!

S.: I love you.—Go——!

(Blanca leaves, weeping.)

SCENE V.

Sancho, who has watched Blanca disappear, when she has gone, says: Unhappy being! Why does a cursed blood course through your veins? Aye!—What blame have I, for having loved you ere I knew the stock from which you came—the blood that gives color and freshness to your cheeks, smile to your lips, light to your eyes? Why do I love you, when I ought to hate you? Why ought I to hate you, when I love you with all my heart?—What is this?—Aye! Aye! I cannot. I cannot more.

(The curtain falls darkly on the scene. A short pause.)

* * * *

SCENE VII.

Viceroy: Sancho——

Sancho: Enter sir! So great an honor!—

V.: I have already told you, Sancho, that I love you as a son. It is not the Viceroy of Mexico, who comes now to your house. I enter it as a friend. Receive me as such.

S.: And—to what, then, do I owe this pleasure? Seat yourself, sir, seat yourself.

(The Viceroy seats himself.)

V.: I come to you, Sancho, because I am most unhappy.

S.: (With pleasure.) You, most unhappy!

V.: Yes. If you knew——

S.: And what has happened to you? Let me know—but allow me to close this door because a draught enters. (He bolts the door that communicates with the interior and through which Blanca had passed.) Ah, well! sir! what makes you unhappy? It seems incredible; a man, powerful, rich, immensely rich, cradled from infancy in the arms of fortune—Perhaps, your wife!——

V.: My wife?—No! My wife has never been able to make me unhappy, just as she has never made me happy. We have never loved. I married her for family reasons and, in fine——

S.: I do not understand, then——

V.: Hear me, Sancho! For many years my only good, my only joy, my sole delight in this world, has been a lovely girl——

S.: Yes, yes,—a lovely girl who has grown up, receiving her education, in the Convent of Seville.

V.: You know it! (Profoundly surprised.)

S.: And whom you brought with you to Mexico, two years ago.

V.: Yes.

S.: You lodged her with the Sisters of the Conception where you caused her to be loved and respected as if she were your daughter.

V.: That is true!

S.: You visited her daily, secretly, at evening——

V.: Yes, because——

S.: You have already said it. Because you loved her with all your soul——

V.: With all my soul! but——

S.: But they have robbed you of her. (Very brief pause.)

V.: (Approaching Sancho, with great emotion.) And you, you Sancho, know this also!

S.: As I tell you——

V.: And, who, who has been—? Who—? Do not tell me his name, that matters nothing! Tell me where he is,—tell me that—because I desire his life’s blood.

S.: Calm, SeÑor Viceroy, more calm!

V.: Calm! and she is not at my side—Calm! and the hours pass.—Calm! and the grief increases and the suffering grows stronger, and despair kills!

S.: You suffer greatly!

V.: Tell me who it is, Sancho! You know it. I see it in your eyes.—Tell me.—You know that here I am the equal of the King! The King, himself, is not more powerful than I! Ask, from me, riches, honor, position,—all, all, for your single word! Speak! You know! Is it not so?

S.: Yes. It is true.

V.: Oh, joy! And you will tell me!

S.: No.

V.: (Furious.) No?—You will not tell me, you? (He directs himself toward the door, raising his voice)—Halloa, here!

S.: (Gently detaining him.) Ah! I will close this door because a draught enters. (Locks the door with a key. The Viceroy looks at him with frightened surprise.)

V.: Sancho!—Are you making sport of me? Are you trifling with my agony?—But, no, no, you would not be capable of that, impossible.—You are not an ingrate.

S.: Seat yourself, SeÑor Viceroy, and hear me.

V.: Seat myself?—Good, I obey you—Now, you see—I seat myself.—But you must tell it me.

S.: Listen. Only last night, SeÑor Viceroy, I told you that Juan de Paredes,—the person who has been recommended to you——

V.: My God! but—and, what has this to do?

S.: If you are not calm——!

V.: Sancho!

S.: If you are not calm, I will say nothing and then you would know nothing, even if you put me to the torture.

V.: Well! well!—I am silent—I listen—What anxiety!

S.: Juan de Paredes, unhappy orphan, entrusted to a friend—very intimate—in fact a second self—the mission of avenging his wrongs upon the person who dishonored his mother, DoÑa Mencia, and assassinated his father—and this firm friend finally discovered the scoundrel—ah, he was a man of great power!

V.: And you know his name?

S.: If you interrupt——

V.: I am silent.

S.: The good friend of Juan de Paredes succeeded in approaching—then in speaking with—and, later, in introducing himself into the house of—and, soon in ingratiating himself in the heart of the criminal.—He spied upon him as the wolf-hunter spies upon his prey,—scrutinized his movements—informed himself of his most insignificant actions. He studied his character, his most hidden motives; he followed him everywhere and at all times and at last discovered the place—the place in which the lair of the beast was hidden! He had but a single love on earth!—And there he fixed his eyes, because fixing his eyes there he thrust a dagger into the assassin’s heart.—Not into his heart, no,—into his very soul!—Because, that love was his daughter—a lovely maiden!——

V.: Continue——!

S.: She gave him evidences of her love.

V.: Continue——!

S.: She loved him with all the blindness and strength of a first love.

V.: And he——?

S.: He did not love her!

Blanca: (From within, with a feeble cry.) Aye!

V.: That cry——

S.: A cry?—Did you hear a cry?

V.: I thought—perhaps, no—I deceived myself,—continue.

S.: And one night—at night!

V.: I know it, now!—Be still! his name!

S.: He stole her—to dishonor her——

V.: Silence.

S.: To defile her——

V.: To defile her!—and, she?

Blanca: (Within.) Open. (Violently shakes the door.)

S.: Hear her.

V.: There—she, there! Wretch—! What have you done? You shall die. (Placing his hand on his swordhilt.)

S.: Yes, yes! Come on, infamous assassin; because, I abhor you as I do her.

SCENE VIII.

The same; also Blanca, who has broken open the door.

B.: (Addressing Sancho.) You lie! You do not abhor me!

V.: Blanca!

S.: (Pointing at Blanca.) Look at her—! look at her—! She was there—! (Indicating his inner apartments, where she was.) And when, soon, you die at my hand, Viceroy of Mexico, you will have suffered two deaths!

V.: (To Blanca.) And is it true——?

B.: Sancho! Save me from this dishonor!

S.: (Paying no attention to her; to the Viceroy.) When finally a father meets——

V.: (Trying to stop Sancho’s mouth.) Silence, cursed wretch, silence——!

S.: Blanca; this is not your guardian, he is—your father!V.: Ah——!

B.: My father! (The viceroy and Blanca stand as if stupefied.)

S.: (Contemplating them.) And how much a father’s heart must suffer in presenting himself with this sacred title for the first time, to a daughter’s heart. She cannot let him kiss her brow—no, she cannot.

B.: (Supplicatingly.) Sancho!

S.: He cannot feel his eyes wet with tears of joy—but only with tears of vengeance! How much she must suffer and how much he!

V.: Infamy.

S.: Infamy, no! because her suffering is multiplied a hundred-fold in yours.

V.: (Drawing his sword.) Blanca, you die!

B.: (Shrinking, horrified.) Ah!

S.: (Throwing himself upon the viceroy.) Do not touch her; look at her—she is innocent! Love has robbed me of my prey. I love her so much that my love conquered my vengeance. (Joy appears on the face of the viceroy.) But do not rejoice, Viceroy. You who rob women of their honor, and assassinate old men, do not rejoice. Only God and you and I know that she is pure. I have not dared to outrage her by a single glance; but, tomorrow——

V.: Ah!

S.: Tomorrow the whole court shall know that she’s your daughter.

V.: No!

S.: And that she passed the night here. (Pointing to the inner rooms.)

V.: Thou shalt die.

S.: My squire knows it——

V.: (Drawing his sword.) Enough!—blood!—what thirst so frightful——!

S.: (Unsheathing.) ’Tis less than mine!

B.: SeÑors, hold! Sancho, is this possible?

S.: Her voice again—again the cry of her love here in my heart! Withdraw your glance from me Blanca, since at its influence my heart fails and the coward steel trembles in my hand.

B.: Sancho! enough!

S.: Hear it——! Hear it, my father! She asks it——! Have pity on me, since, now that the hour has come for avenging thee, the pardon struggles to issue from my lips! My father, pardon!

V.: Your father, you have said! Who was your father? What is your name?

S.: My name is Juan de Paredes.

V.: You—you are the son of Don Diego and DoÑa Mencia?

S.: Why do you remind me of it? Why do you summon before me their bloody spirits? Yes, I am—I am he, whom you have robbed of all.

V.: You, who dishonored her!

S.: Yes.

V.: It seems as if Satan possesses you and hell inspires your words!

B.: What does he say?

S.: What do you say?

V.: Unhappy being, know that those secret amours with DoÑa Mencia bore fruit and that fruit is——

S.: She! oh cursed love! She is my sister——! Oh, almighty God!

* * * *