Evening in the Sierra Nevada. Rolling slopes of brown, with olive trees
instead of apple trees in the cultivated patches, and occasional prickly
pears instead of gorse and bracken in the wilds. Higher up, tall stone
peaks and precipices, all handsome and distinguished. No wild nature
here: rather a most aristocratic mountain landscape made by a fastidious
artist-creator. No vulgar profusion of vegetation: even a touch of
aridity in the frequent patches of stones: Spanish magnificence and
Spanish economy everywhere.
Not very far north of a spot at which the high road over one of the
passes crosses a tunnel on the railway from Malaga to Granada, is one
of the mountain amphitheatres of the Sierra. Looking at it from the wide
end of the horse-shoe, one sees, a little to the right, in the face
of the cliff, a romantic cave which is really an abandoned quarry, and
towards the left a little hill, commanding a view of the road, which
skirts the amphitheatre on the left, maintaining its higher level on
embankments and on an occasional stone arch. On the hill, watching
the road, is a man who is either a Spaniard or a Scotchman. Probably a
Spaniard, since he wears the dress of a Spanish goatherd and seems at
home in the Sierra Nevada, but very like a Scotchman for all that. In
the hollow, on the slope leading to the quarry-cave, are about a dozen
men who, as they recline at their cave round a heap of smouldering white
ashes of dead leaf and brushwood, have an air of being conscious of
themselves as picturesque scoundrels honoring the Sierra by using it as
an effective pictorial background. As a matter of artistic fact they are
not picturesque; and the mountains tolerate them as lions tolerate lice.
An English policeman or Poor Law Guardian would recognize them as a
selected band of tramps and ablebodied paupers.
This description of them is not wholly contemptuous. Whoever has
intelligently observed the tramp, or visited the ablebodied ward of a
workhouse, will admit that our social failures are not all drunkards and
weaklings. Some of them are men who do not fit the class they were born
into. Precisely the same qualities that make the educated gentleman an
artist may make an uneducated manual laborer an ablebodied pauper. There
are men who fall helplessly into the workhouse because they are good
for nothing; but there are also men who are there because they are
strongminded enough to disregard the social convention (obviously not a
disinterested one on the part of the ratepayer) which bids a man live
by heavy and badly paid drudgery when he has the alternative of walking
into the workhouse, announcing himself as a destitute person, and
legally compelling the Guardians to feed, clothe and house him better
than he could feed, clothe and house himself without great exertion.
When a man who is born a poet refuses a stool in a stockbroker's office,
and starves in a garret, spunging on a poor landlady or on his friends
and relatives rather than work against his grain; or when a lady,
because she is a lady, will face any extremity of parasitic dependence
rather than take a situation as cook or parlormaid, we make large
allowances for them. To such allowances the ablebodied pauper and his
nomadic variant the tramp are equally entitled.
Further, the imaginative man, if his life is to be tolerable to him,
must have leisure to tell himself stories, and a position which lends
itself to imaginative decoration. The ranks of unskilled labor offer no
such positions. We misuse our laborers horribly; and when a man refuses
to be misused, we have no right to say that he is refusing honest work.
Let us be frank in this matter before we go on with our play; so that we
may enjoy it without hypocrisy. If we were reasoning, farsighted people,
four fifths of us would go straight to the Guardians for relief,
and knock the whole social system to pieces with most beneficial
reconstructive results. The reason we do got do this is because we work
like bees or ants, by instinct or habit, not reasoning about the matter
at all. Therefore when a man comes along who can and does reason, and
who, applying the Kantian test to his conduct, can truly say to us, If
everybody did as I do, the world would be compelled to reform itself
industrially, and abolish slavery and squalor, which exist only because
everybody does as you do, let us honor that man and seriously
consider the advisability of following his example. Such a man is the
able-bodied, able-minded pauper. Were he a gentleman doing his best to
get a pension or a sinecure instead of sweeping a crossing, nobody would
blame him; for deciding that so long as the alternative lies between
living mainly at the expense of the community and allowing the community
to live mainly at his, it would be folly to accept what is to him
personally the greater of the two evils.
We may therefore contemplate the tramps of the Sierra without prejudice,
admitting cheerfully that our objects--briefly, to be gentlemen of
fortune--are much the same as theirs, and the difference in our position
and methods merely accidental. One or two of them, perhaps, it would be
wiser to kill without malice in a friendly and frank manner; for there
are bipeds, just as there are quadrupeds, who are too dangerous to be
left unchained and unmuzzled; and these cannot fairly expect to have
other men's lives wasted in the work of watching them. But as society
has not the courage to kill them, and, when it catches them, simply
wreaks on them some superstitious expiatory rites of torture and
degradation, and than lets them loose with heightened qualifications for
mischief, it is just as well that they are at large in the Sierra,
and in the hands of a chief who looks as if he might possibly, on
provocation, order them to be shot.
This chief, seated in the centre of the group on a squared block of
stone from the quarry, is a tall strong man, with a striking cockatoo
nose, glossy black hair, pointed beard, upturned moustache, and a
Mephistophelean affectation which is fairly imposing, perhaps because
the scenery admits of a larger swagger than Piccadilly, perhaps because
of a certain sentimentality in the man which gives him that touch of
grace which alone can excuse deliberate picturesqueness. His eyes and
mouth are by no means rascally; he has a fine voice and a ready wit; and
whether he is really the strongest man in the party, or not, he looks
it. He is certainly, the best fed, the best dressed, and the best
trained. The fact that he speaks English is not unexpected in spite of
the Spanish landscape; for with the exception of one man who might be
guessed as a bullfighter ruined by drink and one unmistakable Frenchman,
they are all cockney or American; therefore, in a land of cloaks and
sombreros, they mostly wear seedy overcoats, woollen mufflers, hard
hemispherical hats, and dirty brown gloves. Only a very few dress after
their leader, whose broad sombrero with a cock's feather in the band,
and voluminous cloak descending to his high boots, are as un-English as
possible. None of them are armed; and the ungloved ones keep their hands
in their pockets because it is their national belief that it must be
dangerously cold in the open air with the night coming on. (It is as
warm an evening as any reasonable man could desire).
Except the bullfighting inebriate there is only one person in the
company who looks more than, say, thirty-three. He is a small man with
reddish whiskers, weak eyes, and the anxious look of a small tradesman
in difficulties. He wears the only tall hat visible: it shines in the
sunset with the sticky glow of some sixpenny patent hat reviver, often
applied and constantly tending to produce a worse state of the original
surface than the ruin it was applied to remedy. He has a collar and cuff
of celluloid; and his brown Chesterfield overcoat, with velvet collar,
is still presentable. He is pre-eminently the respectable man of the
party, and is certainly over forty, possibly over fifty. He is the
corner man on the leader's right, opposite three men in scarlet ties on
his left. One of these three is the Frenchman. Of the remaining two, who
are both English, one is argumentative, solemn, and obstinate; the other
rowdy and mischievous.
The chief, with a magnificent fling of the end of his cloak across his
left shoulder, rises to address them. The applause which greets him
shows that he is a favorite orator.
THE CHIEF. Friends and fellow brigands. I have a proposal to make
to this meeting. We have now spent three evenings in discussing the
question Have Anarchists or Social-Democrats the most personal courage?
We have gone into the principles of Anarchism and Social-Democracy at
great length. The cause of Anarchy has been ably represented by our one
Anarchist, who doesn't know what Anarchism means [laughter]--
THE ANARCHIST. [rising] A point of order, Mendoza--
MENDOZA. [forcibly] No, by thunder: your last point of order took half
an hour. Besides, Anarchists don't believe in order.
THE ANARCHIST. [mild, polite but persistent: he is, in fact, the
respectable looking elderly man in the celluloid collar and cuffs] That
is a vulgar error. I can prove--
MENDOZA. Order, order.
THE OTHERS [shouting] Order, order. Sit down. Chair! Shut up.
The Anarchist is suppressed.
MENDOZA. On the other hand we have three Social-Democrats among us. They
are not on speaking terms; and they have put before us three distinct
and incompatible views of Social-Democracy.
THE MAJORITY. [shouting assent] Hear, hear! So we are. Right.
THE ROWDY SOCIAL-DEMOCRAT. [smarting under oppression] You ain't no
Christian. You're a Sheeny, you are.
MENDOZA. [with crushing magnanimity] My friend; I am an exception to
all rules. It is true that I have the honor to be a Jew; and, when the
Zionists need a leader to reassemble our race on its historic soil
of Palestine, Mendoza will not be the last to volunteer [sympathetic
applause--hear, hear, etc.]. But I am not a slave to any superstition.
I have swallowed all the formulas, even that of Socialism; though, in a
sense, once a Socialist, always a Socialist.
THE SOCIAL-DEMOCRATS. Hear, hear!
MENDOZA. But I am well aware that the ordinary man--even the ordinary
brigand, who can scarcely be called an ordinary man [Hear, hear!]--is
not a philosopher. Common sense is good enough for him; and in our
business affairs common sense is good enough for me. Well, what is our
business here in the Sierra Nevada, chosen by the Moors as the fairest
spot in Spain? Is it to discuss abstruse questions of political economy?
No: it is to hold up motor cars and secure a more equitable distribution
of wealth.
THE SULKY SOCIAL-DEMOCRAT. All made by labor, mind you.
MENDOZA. [urbanely] Undoubtedly. All made by labor, and on its way to be
squandered by wealthy vagabonds in the dens of vice that disfigure the
sunny shores of the Mediterranean. We intercept that wealth. We restore
it to circulation among the class that produced it and that chiefly
needs it--the working class. We do this at the risk of our lives
and liberties, by the exercise of the virtues of courage, endurance,
foresight, and abstinence--especially abstinence. I myself have eaten
nothing but prickly pears and broiled rabbit for three days.
THE SULKY SOCIAL-DEMOCRAT. [Stubbornly] No more ain't we.
MENDOZA. [indignantly] Have I taken more than my share?
THE SULKY SOCIAL-DEMOCRAT. [unmoved] Why should you?
THE ANARCHIST. Why should he not? To each according to his needs: from
each according to his means.
THE FRENCHMAN. [shaking his fist at the anarchist] Fumiste!
MENDOZA. [diplomatically] I agree with both of you.
THE GENUINELY ENGLISH BRIGANDS. Hear, hear! Bravo, Mendoza!
MENDOZA. What I say is, let us treat one another as gentlemen, and
strive to excel in personal courage only when we take the field.
THE ROWDY SOCIAL-DEMOCRAT. [derisively] Shikespear.
A whistle comes from the goatherd on the hill. He springs up and points
excitedly forward along the road to the north.
THE GOATHERD. Automobile! Automobile! [He rushes down the hill and joins
the rest, who all scramble to their feet].
MENDOZA. [in ringing tones] To arms! Who has the gun?
THE SULKY SOCIAL-DEMOCRAT. [handing a rifle to Mendoza] Here.
MENDOZA. Have the nails been strewn in the road?
THE ROWDY SOCIAL-DEMOCRAT. Two ahnces of em.
MENDOZA. Good! [To the Frenchman] With me, Duval. If the nails fail,
puncture their tires with a bullet. [He gives the rifle to Duval, who
follows him up the hill. Mendoza produces an opera glass. The others
hurry across to the road and disappear to the north].
MENDOZA. [on the hill, using his glass] Two only, a capitalist and his
chauffeur. They look English.
DUVAL. Angliche! Aoh yess. Cochons! [Handling the rifle] Faut tire,
n'est-ce-pas?
MENDOZA. No: the nails have gone home. Their tire is down: they stop.
DUVAL. [shouting to the others] Fondez sur eux, nom de Dieu!
MENDOZA. [rebuking his excitement] Du calme, Duval: keep your hair on.
They take it quietly. Let us descend and receive them.
Mendoza descends, passing behind the fire and coming forward, whilst
Tanner and Straker, in their motoring goggles, leather coats, and caps,
are led in from the road by brigands.
TANNER. Is this the gentleman you describe as your boss? Does he speak
English?
THE ROWDY SOCIAL-DEMOCRAT. Course he does. Y'don't suppowz we
Hinglishmen lets ahrselves be bossed by a bloomin Spenniard, do you?
MENDOZA. [with dignity] Allow me to introduce myself: Mendoza, President
of the League of the Sierra! [Posing loftily] I am a brigand: I live by
robbing the rich.
TANNER. [promptly] I am a gentleman: I live by robbing the poor. Shake
hands.
THE ENGLISH SOCIAL-DEMOCRATS. Hear, hear!
General laughter and good humor. Tanner and Mendoza shake hands. The
Brigands drop into their former places.
STRAKER. Ere! where do I come in?
TANNER. [introducing] My friend and chauffeur.
THE SULKY SOCIAL-DEMOCRAT. [suspiciously] Well, which is he? friend or
show-foor? It makes all the difference you know.
MENDOZA. [explaining] We should expect ransom for a friend. A
professional chauffeur is free of the mountains. He even takes a
trifling percentage of his princpal's ransom if he will honor us by
accepting it.
STRAKER. I see. Just to encourage me to come this way again. Well, I'll
think about it.
DUVAL. [impulsively rushing across to Straker] Mon frere! [He embraces
him rapturously and kisses him on both cheeks].
STRAKER. [disgusted] Ere, git out: don't be silly. Who are you, pray?
DUVAL. Duval: Social-Democrat.
STRAKER. Oh, you're a Social-Democrat, are you?
THE ANARCHIST. He means that he has sold out to the parliamentary
humbugs and the bourgeoisie. Compromise! that is his faith.
DUVAL. [furiously] I understand what he say. He say Bourgeois. He say
Compromise. Jamais de la vie! Miserable menteur--
STRAKER. See here, Captain Mendoza, ow much o this sort o thing do you
put up with here? Are we avin a pleasure trip in the mountains, or are
we at a Socialist meetin?
THE MAJORITY. Hear, hear! Shut up. Chuck it. Sit down, etc. etc. [The
Social-Democrats and the Anarchist are hurtled into the background.
Straker, after superintending this proceeding with satisfaction, places
himself on Mendoza's left, Tanner being on his right].
MENDOZA. Can we offer you anything? Broiled rabbit and prickly pears--
TANNER. Thank you: we have dined.
MENDOZA. [to his followers] Gentlemen: business is over for the day. Go
as you please until morning.
The Brigands disperse into groups lazily. Some go into the cave. Others
sit down or lie down to sleep in the open. A few produce a pack of cards
and move off towards the road; for it is now starlight; and they know
that motor cars have lamps which can be turned to account for lighting a
card party.
STRAKER. [calling after them] Don't none of you go fooling with that
car, d'ye hear?
MENDOZA. No fear, Monsieur le Chauffeur. The first one we captured cured
us of that.
STRAKER. [interested] What did it do?
MENDOZA. It carried three brave comrades of ours, who did not know how
to stop it, into Granada, and capsized them opposite the police station.
Since then we never touch one without sending for the chauffeur. Shall
we chat at our ease?
TANNER. By all means.
Tanner, Mendoza, and Straker sit down on the turf by the fire. Mendoza
delicately waives his presidential dignity, of which the right to sit on
the squared stone block is the appanage, by sitting on the ground like
his guests, and using the stone only as a support for his back.
MENDOZA. It is the custom in Spain always to put off business until
to-morrow. In fact, you have arrived out of office hours. However, if
you would prefer to settle the question of ransom at once, I am at your
service.
TANNER. To-morrow will do for me. I am rich enough to pay anything in
reason.
MENDOZA. [respectfully, much struck by this admission] You are a
remarkable man, sir. Our guests usually describe themselves as miserably
poor.
TANNER. Pooh! Miserably poor people don't own motor cars.
MENDOZA. Precisely what we say to them.
TANNER. Treat us well: we shall not prove ungrateful.
STRAKER. No prickly pears and broiled rabbits, you know. Don't tell me
you can't do us a bit better than that if you like.
MENDOZA. Wine, kids, milk, cheese and bread can be procured for ready
money.
STRAKER. [graciously] Now you're talking.
TANNER. Are you all Socialists here, may I ask?
MENDOZA. [repudiating this humiliating misconception] Oh no, no, no:
nothing of the kind, I assure you. We naturally have modern views as to
the justice of the existing distribution of wealth: otherwise we should
lose our self-respect. But nothing that you could take exception to,
except two or three faddists.
TANNER. I had no intention of suggesting anything discreditable. In
fact, I am a bit of a Socialist myself.
STRAKER. [drily] Most rich men are, I notice.
MENDOZA. Quite so. It has reached us, I admit. It is in the air of the
century.
STRAKER. Socialism must be looking up a bit if your chaps are taking to
it.
MENDOZA. That is true, sir. A movement which is confined to philosophers
and honest men can never exercise any real political influence: there
are too few of them. Until a movement shows itself capable of spreading
among brigands, it can never hope for a political majority.
TANNER. But are your brigands any less honest than ordinary citizens?
MENDOZA. Sir: I will be frank with you. Brigandage is abnormal. Abnormal
professions attract two classes: those who are not good enough for
ordinary bourgeois life and those who are too good for it. We are dregs
and scum, sir: the dregs very filthy, the scum very superior.
STRAKER. Take care! some o the dregs'll hear you.
MENDOZA. It does not matter: each brigand thinks himself scum, and likes
to hear the others called dregs.
TANNER. Come! you are a wit. [Mendoza inclines his head, flattered]. May
one ask you a blunt question?
MENDOZA. As blunt as you please.
TANNER. How does it pay a man of your talent to shepherd such a flock as
this on broiled rabbit and prickly pears? I have seen men less gifted,
and I'll swear less honest, supping at the Savoy on foie gras and
champagne.
MENDOZA. Pooh! they have all had their turn at the broiled rabbit, just
as I shall have my turn at the Savoy. Indeed, I have had a turn there
already--as waiter.
TANNER. A waiter! You astonish me!
MENDOZA. [reflectively] Yes: I, Mendoza of the Sierra, was a waiter.
Hence, perhaps, my cosmopolitanism. [With sudden intensity] Shall I tell
you the story of my life?
STRAKER. [apprehensively] If it ain't too long, old chap--
TANNER. [interrupting him] Tsh-sh: you are a Philistine, Henry: you have
no romance in you. [To Mendoza] You interest me extremely, President.
Never mind Henry: he can go to sleep.
MENDOZA. The woman I loved--
STRAKER. Oh, this is a love story, is it? Right you are. Go on: I was
only afraid you were going to talk about yourself.
MENDOZA. Myself! I have thrown myself away for her sake: that is why
I am here. No matter: I count the world well lost for her. She had, I
pledge you my word, the most magnificent head of hair I ever saw. She
had humor; she had intellect; she could cook to perfection; and her
highly strung temperament made her uncertain, incalculable, variable,
capricious, cruel, in a word, enchanting.
STRAKER. A six shillin novel sort o woman, all but the cookin. Er name
was Lady Gladys Plantagenet, wasn't it?
MENDOZA. No, sir: she was not an earl's daughter. Photography,
reproduced by the half-tone process, has made me familiar with the
appearance of the daughters of the English peerage; and I can honestly
say that I would have sold the lot, faces, dowries, clothes, titles, and
all, for a smile from this woman. Yet she was a woman of the people,
a worker: otherwise--let me reciprocate your bluntness--I should have
scorned her.
TANNER. Very properly. And did she respond to your love?
MENDOZA. Should I be here if she did? She objected to marry a Jew.
TANNER. On religious grounds?
MENDOZA. No: she was a freethinker. She said that every Jew considers in
his heart that English people are dirty in their habits.
TANNER. [surprised] Dirty!
MENDOZA. It showed her extraordinary knowledge of the world; for it
is undoubtedly true. Our elaborate sanitary code makes us unduly
contemptuous of the Gentile.
TANNER. Did you ever hear that, Henry?
STRAKER. I've heard my sister say so. She was cook in a Jewish family
once.
MENDOZA. I could not deny it; neither could I eradicate the impression
it made on her mind. I could have got round any other objection; but
no woman can stand a suspicion of indelicacy as to her person. My
entreaties were in vain: she always retorted that she wasn't good enough
for me, and recommended me to marry an accursed barmaid named Rebecca
Lazarus, whom I loathed. I talked of suicide: she offered me a packet
of beetle poison to do it with. I hinted at murder: she went into
hysterics; and as I am a living man I went to America so that she might
sleep without dreaming that I was stealing upstairs to cut her throat.
In America I went out west and fell in with a man who was wanted by the
police for holding up trains. It was he who had the idea of holding up
motors cars--in the South of Europe: a welcome idea to a desperate and
disappointed man. He gave me some valuable introductions to capitalists
of the right sort. I formed a syndicate; and the present enterprise is
the result. I became leader, as the Jew always becomes leader, by his
brains and imagination. But with all my pride of race I would give
everything I possess to be an Englishman. I am like a boy: I cut her
name on the trees and her initials on the sod. When I am alone I lie
down and tear my wretched hair and cry Louisa--
STRAKER. [startled] Louisa!
MENDOZA. It is her name--Louisa--Louisa Straker--
TANNER. Straker!
STRAKER. [scrambling up on his knees most indignantly] Look here: Louisa
Straker is my sister, see? Wot do you mean by gassin about her like
this? Wot she got to do with you?
MENDOZA. A dramatic coincidence! You are Enry, her favorite brother!
STRAKER. Oo are you callin Enry? What call have you to take a liberty
with my name or with hers? For two pins I'd punch your fat ed, so I
would.
MENDOZA. [with grandiose calm] If I let you do it, will you promise to
brag of it afterwards to her? She will be reminded of her Mendoza: that
is all I desire.
TANNER. This is genuine devotion, Henry. You should respect it.
STRAKER. [fiercely] Funk, more likely.
MENDOZA. [springing to his feet] Funk! Young man: I come of a famous
family of fighters; and as your sister well knows, you would have as
much chance against me as a perambulator against your motor car.
STRAKER. [secretly daunted, but rising from his knees with an air of
reckless pugnacity] I ain't afraid of you. With your Louisa! Louisa!
Miss Straker is good enough for you, I should think.
MENDOZA. I wish you could persuade her to think so.
STRAKER. [exasperated] Here--
TANNER. [rising quickly and interposing] Oh come, Henry: even if you
could fight the President you can't fight the whole League of the
Sierra. Sit down again and be friendly. A cat may look at a king; and
even a President of brigands may look at your sister. All this family
pride is really very old fashioned.
STRAKER. [subdued, but grumbling] Let him look at her. But wot does he
mean by makin out that she ever looked at im? [Reluctantly resuming his
couch on the turf] Ear him talk, one ud think she was keepin company
with him. [He turns his back on them and composes himself to sleep].
MENDOZA. [to Tanner, becoming more confidential as he finds himself
virtually alone with a sympathetic listener in the still starlight of
the mountains; for all the rest are asleep by this time] It was just so
with her, sir. Her intellect reached forward into the twentieth century:
her social prejudices and family affections reached back into the dark
ages. Ah, sir, how the words of Shakespear seem to fit every crisis in
our emotions!
I loved Louisa: 40,000 brothers
Could not with all their quantity of love
Make up my sum.
And so on. I forget the rest. Call it madness if you will--infatuation.
I am an able man, a strong man: in ten years I should have owned a
first-class hotel. I met her; and you see! I am a brigand, an outcast.
Even Shakespear cannot do justice to what I feel for Louisa. Let me
read you some lines that I have written about her myself. However slight
their literary merit may be, they express what I feel better than any
casual words can. [He produces a packet of hotel bills scrawled with
manuscript, and kneels at the fire to decipher them, poking it with a
stick to make it glow].
TANNER. [clapping him rudely on the shoulder] Put them in the fire,
President.
MENDOZA. [startled] Eh?
TANNER. You are sacrificing your career to a monomania.
MENDOZA. I know it.
TANNER. No you don't. No man would commit such a crime against himself
if he really knew what he was doing. How can you look round at these
august hills, look up at this divine sky, taste this finely tempered
air, and then talk like a literary hack on a second floor in Bloomsbury?
MENDOZA. [shaking his head] The Sierra is no better than Bloomsbury when
once the novelty has worn off. Besides, these mountains make you dream
of women--of women with magnificent hair.
TANNER. Of Louisa, in short. They will not make me dream of women, my
friend: I am heartwhole.
MENDOZA. Do not boast until morning, sir. This is a strange country for
dreams.
TANNER. Well, we shall see. Goodnight. [He lies down and composes
himself to sleep].
Mendoza, with a sigh, follows his example; and for a few moments
there is peace in the Sierra. Then Mendoza sits up suddenly and says
pleadingly to Tanner--
MENDOZA. Just allow me to read a few lines before you go to sleep. I
should really like your opinion of them.
TANNER. [drowsily] Go on. I am listening.
MENDOZA. I saw thee first in Whitsun week Louisa, Louisa--
TANNER. [roaring himself] My dear President, Louisa is a very pretty
name; but it really doesn't rhyme well to Whitsun week.
MENDOZA. Of course not. Louisa is not the rhyme, but the refrain.
TANNER. [subsiding] Ah, the refrain. I beg your pardon. Go on.
MENDOZA. Perhaps you do not care for that one: I think you will like
this better. [He recites, in rich soft tones, and to slow time]
Louisa, I love thee.
I love thee, Louisa.
Louisa, Louisa, Louisa, I love thee.
One name and one phrase make my music,
Louisa. Louisa, Louisa, Louisa, I love thee.
Mendoza thy lover,
Thy lover, Mendoza,
Mendoza adoringly lives for Louisa.
There's nothing but that in the world for Mendoza.
Louisa, Louisa, Mendoza adores thee.
[Affected] There is no merit in producing beautiful lines upon such a
name. Louisa is an exquisite name, is it not?
TANNER. [all but asleep, responds with a faint groan].
MENDOZA.
O wert thou, Louisa,
The wife of Mendoza,
Mendoza's Louisa, Louisa Mendoza,
How blest were the life of Louisa's Mendoza!
How painless his longing of love for Louisa!
That is real poetry--from the heart--from the heart of hearts. Don't you
think it will move her?
No answer.
[Resignedly] Asleep, as usual. Doggrel to all the world; heavenly music
to me! Idiot that I am to wear my heart on my sleeve! [He composes
himself to sleep, murmuring] Louisa, I love thee; I love thee, Louisa;
Louisa, Louisa, Louisa, I--
Straker snores; rolls over on his side; and relapses into sleep.
Stillness settles on the Sierra; and the darkness deepens. The fire
has again buried itself in white ash and ceased to glow. The peaks show
unfathomably dark against the starry firmament; but now the stars dim
and vanish; and the sky seems to steal away out of the universe. Instead
of the Sierra there is nothing; omnipresent nothing. No sky, no peaks,
no light, no sound, no time nor space, utter void. Then somewhere
the beginning of a pallor, and with it a faint throbbing buzz as of a
ghostly violoncello palpitating on the same note endlessly. A couple of
ghostly violins presently take advantage of this bass
(a staff of music is supplied here)
and therewith the pallor reveals a man in the void, an incorporeal but
visible man, seated, absurdly enough, on nothing. For a moment he raises
his head as the music passes him by. Then, with a heavy sigh, he droops
in utter dejection; and the violins, discouraged, retrace their melody
in despair and at last give it up, extinguished by wailings from uncanny
wind instruments, thus:--
(more music)
It is all very odd. One recognizes the Mozartian strain; and on this
hint, and by the aid of certain sparkles of violet light in the pallor,
the man's costume explains itself as that of a Spanish nobleman of the
XV-XVI century. Don Juan, of course; but where? why? how? Besides, in
the brief lifting of his face, now hidden by his hat brim, there was
a curious suggestion of Tanner. A more critical, fastidious, handsome
face, paler and colder, without Tanner's impetuous credulity and
enthusiasm, and without a touch of his modern plutocratic vulgarity, but
still a resemblance, even an identity. The name too: Don Juan Tenorio,
John Tanner. Where on earth---or elsewhere--have we got to from the XX
century and the Sierra?
Another pallor in the void, this time not violet, but a disagreeable
smoky yellow. With it, the whisper of a ghostly clarionet turning this
tune into infinite sadness:
(Here there is another musical staff.)
The yellowish pallor moves: there is an old crone wandering in the void,
bent and toothless; draped, as well as one can guess, in the coarse
brown frock of some religious order. She wanders and wanders in her
slow hopeless way, much as a wasp flies in its rapid busy way, until
she blunders against the thing she seeks: companionship. With a sob of
relief the poor old creature clutches at the presence of the man and
addresses him in her dry unlovely voice, which can still express pride
and resolution as well as suffering.
THE OLD WOMAN. Excuse me; but I am so lonely; and this place is so
awful.
DON JUAN. A new comer?
THE OLD WOMAN. Yes: I suppose I died this morning. I confessed; I had
extreme unction; I was in bed with my family about me and my eyes fixed
on the cross. Then it grew dark; and when the light came back it was
this light by which I walk seeing nothing. I have wandered for hours in
horrible loneliness.
DON JUAN. [sighing] Ah! you have not yet lost the sense of time. One
soon does, in eternity.
THE OLD WOMAN. Where are we?
DON JUAN. In hell.
THE OLD WOMAN [proudly] Hell! I in hell! How dare you?
DON JUAN. [unimpressed] Why not, Senora?
THE OLD WOMAN. You do not know to whom you are speaking. I am a lady,
and a faithful daughter of the Church.
DON JUAN. I do not doubt it.
THE OLD WOMAN. But how then can I be in hell? Purgatory, perhaps: I have
not been perfect: who has? But hell! oh, you are lying.
DON JUAN. Hell, Senora, I assure you; hell at its best--that is, its most
solitary--though perhaps you would prefer company.
THE OLD WOMAN. But I have sincerely repented; I have confessed.
DON JUAN. How much?
THE OLD WOMAN. More sins than I really committed. I loved confession.
DON JUAN. Ah, that is perhaps as bad as confessing too little. At all
events, Senora, whether by oversight or intention, you are certainly
damned, like myself; and there is nothing for it now but to make the
best of it.
THE OLD WOMAN [indignantly] Oh! and I might have been so much wickeder!
All my good deeds wasted! It is unjust.
DON JUAN. No: you were fully and clearly warned. For your bad deeds,
vicarious atonement, mercy without justice. For your good deeds, justice
without mercy. We have many good people here.
THE OLD WOMAN. Were you a good man?
DON JUAN. I was a murderer.
THE OLD WOMAN. A murderer! Oh, how dare they send me to herd with
murderers! I was not as bad as that: I was a good woman. There is some
mistake: where can I have it set right?
DON JUAN. I do not know whether mistakes can be corrected here. Probably
they will not admit a mistake even if they have made one.
THE OLD WOMAN. But whom can I ask?
DON JUAN. I should ask the Devil, Senora: he understands the ways of
this place, which is more than I ever could.
THE OLD WOMAN. The Devil! _I_ speak to the Devil!
DON JUAN. In hell, Senora, the Devil is the leader of the best society.
THE OLD WOMAN. I tell you, wretch, I know I am not in hell.
DON JUAN. How do you know?
THE OLD WOMAN. Because I feel no pain.
DON JUAN. Oh, then there is no mistake: you are intentionally damned.
THE OLD WOMAN. Why do you say that?
DON JUAN. Because hell, Senora, is a place for the wicked. The wicked
are quite comfortable in it: it was made for them. You tell me you feel
no pain. I conclude you are one of those for whom Hell exists.
THE OLD WOMAN. Do you feel no pain?
DON JUAN. I am not one of the wicked, Senora; therefore it bores me,
bores me beyond description, beyond belief.
THE OLD WOMAN. Not one of the wicked! You said you were a murderer.
DON JUAN. Only a duel. I ran my sword through an old man who was trying
to run his through me.
THE OLD WOMAN. If you were a gentleman, that was not a murder.
DON JUAN. The old man called it murder, because he was, he said,
defending his daughter's honor. By this he meant that because I
foolishly fell in love with her and told her so, she screamed; and he
tried to assassinate me after calling me insulting names.
THE OLD WOMAN. You were like all men. Libertines and murderers all, all,
all!
DON JUAN. And yet we meet here, dear lady.
THE OLD WOMAN. Listen to me. My father was slain by just such a wretch
as you, in just such a duel, for just such a cause. I screamed: it was
my duty. My father drew on my assailant: his honor demanded it. He fell:
that was the reward of honor. I am here: in hell, you tell me that is
the reward of duty. Is there justice in heaven?
DON JUAN. No; but there is justice in hell: heaven is far above such
idle human personalities. You will be welcome in hell, Senora. Hell
is the home of honor, duty, justice, and the rest of the seven deadly
virtues. All the wickedness on earth is done in their name: where else
but in hell should they have their reward? Have I not told you that the
truly damned are those who are happy in hell?
THE OLD WOMAN. And are you happy here?
DON JUAN. [Springing to his feet] No; and that is the enigma on which I
ponder in darkness. Why am I here? I, who repudiated all duty, trampled
honor underfoot, and laughed at justice!
THE OLD WOMAN. Oh, what do I care why you are here? Why am I here? I,
who sacrificed all my inclinations to womanly virtue and propriety!
DON JUAN. Patience, lady: you will be perfectly happy and at home here.
As saith the poet, "Hell is a city much like Seville."
THE OLD WOMAN. Happy! here! where I am nothing! where I am nobody!
DON JUAN. Not at all: you are a lady; and wherever ladies are is hell.
Do not be surprised or terrified: you will find everything here that a
lady can desire, including devils who will serve you from sheer love of
servitude, and magnify your importance for the sake of dignifying their
service--the best of servants.
THE OLD WOMAN. My servants will be devils!
DON JUAN. Have you ever had servants who were not devils?
THE OLD WOMAN. Never: they were devils, perfect devils, all of them. But
that is only a manner of speaking. I thought you meant that my servants
here would be real devils.
DON JUAN. No more real devils than you will be a real lady. Nothing is
real here. That is the horror of damnation.
THE OLD WOMAN. Oh, this is all madness. This is worse than fire and the
worm.
DON JUAN. For you, perhaps, there are consolations. For instance: how
old were you when you changed from time to eternity?
THE OLD WOMAN. Do not ask me how old I was as if I were a thing of the
past. I am 77.
DON JUAN. A ripe age, Senora. But in hell old age is not tolerated. It
is too real. Here we worship Love and Beauty. Our souls being entirely
damned, we cultivate our hearts. As a lady of 77, you would not have a
single acquaintance in hell.
THE OLD WOMAN. How can I help my age, man?
DON JUAN. You forget that you have left your age behind you in the realm
of time. You are no more 77 than you are 7 or 17 or 27.
THE OLD WOMAN. Nonsense!
DON JUAN. Consider, Senora: was not this true even when you lived on
earth? When you were 70, were you really older underneath your wrinkles
and your grey hairs than when you were 30?
THE OLD WOMAN. No, younger: at 30 I was a fool. But of what use is it to
feel younger and look older?
DON JUAN. You see, Senora, the look was only an illusion. Your wrinkles
lied, just as the plump smooth skin of many a stupid girl of 17, with
heavy spirits and decrepit ideas, lies about her age? Well, here we have
no bodies: we see each other as bodies only because we learnt to think
about one another under that aspect when we were alive; and we still
think in that way, knowing no other. But we can appear to one another at
what age we choose. You have but to will any of your old looks back, and
back they will come.
THE OLD WOMAN. It cannot be true.
DON JUAN. Try.
THE OLD WOMAN. Seventeen!
DON JUAN. Stop. Before you decide, I had better tell you that these
things are a matter of fashion. Occasionally we have a rage for 17; but
it does not last long. Just at present the fashionable age is 40--or say
37; but there are signs of a change. If you were at all good-looking at
27, I should suggest your trying that, and setting a new fashion.
THE OLD WOMAN. I do not believe a word you are saying. However, 27 be
it. [Whisk! the old woman becomes a young one, and so handsome that in
the radiance into which her dull yellow halo has suddenly lightened one
might almost mistake her for Ann Whitefield].
DON JUAN. Dona Ana de Ulloa!
ANA. What? You know me!
DON JUAN. And you forget me!
ANA. I cannot see your face. [He raises his hat]. Don Juan Tenorio!
Monster! You who slew my father! even here you pursue me.
DON JUAN. I protest I do not pursue you. Allow me to withdraw [going].
ANA. [seizing his arm] You shall not leave me alone in this dreadful
place.
DON JUAN. Provided my staying be not interpreted as pursuit.
ANA. [releasing him] You may well wonder how I can endure your presence.
My dear, dear father!
DON JUAN. Would you like to see him?
ANA. My father HERE!!!
DON JUAN. No: he is in heaven.
ANA. I knew it. My noble father! He is looking down on us now. What must
he feel to see his daughter in this place, and in conversation with his
murderer!
DON JUAN. By the way, if we should meet him--
ANA. How can we meet him? He is in heaven.
DON JUAN. He condescends to look in upon us here from time to time.
Heaven bores him. So let me warn you that if you meet him he will be
mortally offended if you speak of me as his murderer! He maintains that
he was a much better swordsman than I, and that if his foot had not
slipped he would have killed me. No doubt he is right: I was not a good
fencer. I never dispute the point; so we are excellent friends.
ANA. It is no dishonor to a soldier to be proud of his skill in arms.
DON JUAN. You would rather not meet him, probably.
ANA. How dare you say that?
DON JUAN. Oh, that is the usual feeling here. You may remember that on
earth--though of course we never confessed it--the death of anyone
we knew, even those we liked best, was always mingled with a certain
satisfaction at being finally done with them.
ANA. Monster! Never, never.
DON JUAN. [placidly] I see you recognize the feeling. Yes: a funeral was
always a festivity in black, especially the funeral of a relative. At
all events, family ties are rarely kept up here. Your father is quite
accustomed to this: he will not expect any devotion from you.
ANA. Wretch: I wore mourning for him all my life.
DON JUAN. Yes: it became you. But a life of mourning is one thing: an
eternity of it quite another. Besides, here you are as dead as he. Can
anything be more ridiculous than one dead person mourning for another?
Do not look shocked, my dear Ana; and do not be alarmed: there is plenty
of humbug in hell (indeed there is hardly anything else); but the humbug
of death and age and change is dropped because here WE are all dead and
all eternal. You will pick up our ways soon.
ANA. And will all the men call me their dear Ana?
DON JUAN. No. That was a slip of the tongue. I beg your pardon.
ANA. [almost tenderly] Juan: did you really love me when you behaved so
disgracefully to me?
DON JUAN. [impatiently] Oh, I beg you not to begin talking about love.
Here they talk of nothing else but love--its beauty, its holiness, its
spirituality, its devil knows what!--excuse me; but it does so bore me.
They don't know what they're talking about. I do. They think they have
achieved the perfection of love because they have no bodies. Sheer
imaginative debauchery! Faugh!
ANA. Has even death failed to refine your soul, Juan? Has the terrible
judgment of which my father's statue was the minister taught you no
reverence?
DON JUAN. How is that very flattering statue, by the way? Does it still
come to supper with naughty people and cast them into this bottomless
pit?
ANA. It has been a great expense to me. The boys in the monastery school
would not let it alone: the mischievous ones broke it; and the studious
ones wrote their names on it. Three new noses in two years, and fingers
without end. I had to leave it to its fate at last; and now I fear it is
shockingly mutilated. My poor father!
DON JUAN. Hush! Listen! [Two great chords rolling on syncopated waves of
sound break forth: D minor and its dominant: a round of dreadful joy to
all musicians]. Ha! Mozart's statue music. It is your father. You had
better disappear until I prepare him. [She vanishes].
From the void comes a living statue of white marble, designed to
represent a majestic old man. But he waives his majesty with infinite
grace; walks with a feather-like step; and makes every wrinkle in his
war worn visage brim over with holiday joyousness. To his sculptor he
owes a perfectly trained figure, which he carries erect and trim; and
the ends of his moustache curl up, elastic as watchsprings, giving him
an air which, but for its Spanish dignity, would be called jaunty. He is
on the pleasantest terms with Don Juan. His voice, save for a much more
distinguished intonation, is so like the voice of Roebuck Ramsden that
it calls attention to the fact that they are not unlike one another in
spite of their very different fashion of shaving.
DON JUAN. Ah, here you are, my friend. Why don't you learn to sing the
splendid music Mozart has written for you?
THE STATUE. Unluckily he has written it for a bass voice. Mine is a
counter tenor. Well: have you repented yet?
DON JUAN. I have too much consideration for you to repent, Don Gonzalo.
If I did, you would have no excuse for coming from Heaven to argue with
me.
THE STATUE. True. Remain obdurate, my boy. I wish I had killed you, as I
should have done but for an accident. Then I should have come here; and
you would have had a statue and a reputation for piety to live up to.
Any news?
DON JUAN. Yes: your daughter is dead.
THE STATUE. [puzzled] My daughter? [Recollecting] Oh! the one you were
taken with. Let me see: what was her name?
DON JUAN. Ana.
THE STATUE. To be sure: Ana. A goodlooking girl, if I recollect aright.
Have you warned Whatshisname--her husband?
DON JUAN. My friend Ottavio? No: I have not seen him since Ana arrived.
Ana comes indignantly to light.
ANA. What does this mean? Ottavio here and YOUR friend! And you, father,
have forgotten my name. You are indeed turned to stone.
THE STATUE. My dear: I am so much more admired in marble than I ever was
in my own person that I have retained the shape the sculptor gave me. He
was one of the first men of his day: you must acknowledge that.
ANA. Father! Vanity! personal vanity! from you!
THE STATUE. Ah, you outlived that weakness, my daughter: you must be
nearly 80 by this time. I was cut off (by an accident) in my 64th year,
and am considerably your junior in consequence. Besides, my child,
in this place, what our libertine friend here would call the farce of
parental wisdom is dropped. Regard me, I beg, as a fellow creature, not
as a father.
ANA. You speak as this villain speaks.
THE STATUE. Juan is a sound thinker, Ana. A bad fencer, but a sound
thinker.
ANA. [horror creeping upon her] I begin to understand. These are devils,
mocking me. I had better pray.
THE STATUE. [consoling her] No, no, no, my child: do not pray. If you
do, you will throw away the main advantage of this place. Written over
the gate here are the words "Leave every hope behind, ye who enter."
Only think what a relief that is! For what is hope? A form of moral
responsibility. Here there is no hope, and consequently no duty, no
work, nothing to be gained by praying, nothing to be lost by doing what
you like. Hell, in short, is a place where you have nothing to do but
amuse yourself. [Don Juan sighs deeply]. You sigh, friend Juan; but if
you dwelt in heaven, as I do, you would realize your advantages.
DON JUAN. You are in good spirits to-day, Commander. You are positively
brilliant. What is the matter?
THE STATUE. I have come to a momentous decision, my boy. But first,
where is our friend the Devil? I must consult him in the matter. And Ana
would like to make his acquaintance, no doubt.
ANA. You are preparing some torment for me.
DON JUAN. All that is superstition, Ana. Reassure yourself. Remember:
the devil is not so black as he is painted.
THE STATUE. Let us give him a call.
At the wave of the statue's hand the great chords roll out again but
this time Mozart's music gets grotesquely adulterated with Gounod's.
A scarlet halo begins to glow; and into it the Devil rises, very
Mephistophelean, and not at all unlike Mendoza, though not so
interesting. He looks older; is getting prematurely bald; and, in spite
of an effusion of goodnature and friendliness, is peevish and sensitive
when his advances are not reciprocated. He does not inspire much
confidence in his powers of hard work or endurance, and is, on the
whole, a disagreeably self-indulgent looking person; but he is clever
and plausible, though perceptibly less well bred than the two other men,
and enormously less vital than the woman.
THE DEVIL. [heartily] Have I the pleasure of again receiving a visit
from the illustrious Commander of Calatrava? [Coldly] Don Juan, your
servant. [Politely] And a strange lady? My respects, Senora.
ANA. Are you--
THE DEVIL. [bowing] Lucifer, at your service.
ANA. I shall go mad.
THE DEVIL. [gallantly] Ah, Senora, do not be anxious. You come to us
from earth, full of the prejudices and terrors of that priest-ridden
place. You have heard me ill spoken of; and yet, believe me, I have
hosts of friends there.
ANA. Yes: you reign in their hearts.
THE DEVIL. [shaking his head] You flatter me, Senora; but you are
mistaken. It is true that the world cannot get on without me; but it
never gives me credit for that: in its heart it mistrusts and hates me.
Its sympathies are all with misery, with poverty, with starvation of the
body and of the heart. I call on it to sympathize with joy, with love,
with happiness, with beauty.
DON JUAN. [nauseated] Excuse me: I am going. You know I cannot stand
this.
THE DEVIL. [angrily] Yes: I know that you are no friend of mine.
THE STATUE. What harm is he doing you, Juan? It seems to me that he was
talking excellent sense when you interrupted him.
THE DEVIL. [warmly shaking the statue's hand] Thank you, my friend:
thank you. You have always understood me: he has always disparaged and
avoided me.
DON JUAN. I have treated you with perfect courtesy.
THE DEVIL. Courtesy! What is courtesy? I care nothing for mere courtesy.
Give me warmth of heart, true sincerity, the bond of sympathy with love
and joy--
DON JUAN. You are making me ill.
THE DEVIL. There! [Appealing to the statue] You hear, sir! Oh, by what
irony of fate was this cold selfish egotist sent to my kingdom, and you
taken to the icy mansions of the sky!
THE STATUE. I can't complain. I was a hypocrite; and it served me right
to be sent to heaven.
THE DEVIL. Why, sir, do you not join us, and leave a sphere for which
your temperament is too sympathetic, your heart too warm, your capacity
for enjoyment too generous?
THE STATUE. I have this day resolved to do so. In future, excellent Son
of the Morning, I am yours. I have left Heaven for ever.
THE DEVIL. [again grasping his hand] Ah, what an honor for me! What a
triumph for our cause! Thank you, thank you. And now, my friend--I may
call you so at last--could you not persuade HIM to take the place you
have left vacant above?
THE STATUE. [shaking his head] I cannot conscientiously recommend
anybody with whom I am on friendly terms to deliberately make himself
dull and uncomfortable.
THE DEVIL. Of course not; but are you sure HE would be uncomfortable?
Of course you know best: you brought him here originally; and we had the
greatest hopes of him. His sentiments were in the best taste of our best
people. You remember how he sang? [He begins to sing in a nasal operatic
baritone, tremulous from an eternity of misuse in the French manner].
Vivan le femmine!
Viva il buon vino!
THE STATUE. [taking up the tune an octave higher in his counter tenor]
Sostegno a gloria
D'umanita.
THE DEVIL. Precisely. Well, he never sings for us now.
DON JUAN. Do you complain of that? Hell is full of musical amateurs:
music is the brandy of the damned. May not one lost soul be permitted to
abstain?
THE DEVIL. You dare blaspheme against the sublimest of the arts!
DON JUAN. [with cold disgust] You talk like a hysterical woman fawning
on a fiddler.
THE DEVIL. I am not angry. I merely pity you. You have no soul; and you
are unconscious of all that you lose. Now you, Senor Commander, are a
born musician. How well you sing! Mozart would be delighted if he were
still here; but he moped and went to heaven. Curious how these clever
men, whom you would have supposed born to be popular here, have turned
out social failures, like Don Juan!
DON JUAN. I am really very sorry to be a social failure.
THE DEVIL. Not that we don't admire your intellect, you know. We do. But
I look at the matter from your own point of view. You don't get on with
us. The place doesn't suit you. The truth is, you have--I won't say no
heart; for we know that beneath all your affected cynicism you have a
warm one.
DON JUAN. [shrinking] Don't, please don't.
THE DEVIL. [nettled] Well, you've no capacity for enjoyment. Will that
satisfy you?
DON JUAN. It is a somewhat less insufferable form of cant than the
other. But if you'll allow me, I'll take refuge, as usual, in solitude.
THE DEVIL. Why not take refuge in Heaven? That's the proper place for
you. [To Ana] Come, Senora! could you not persuade him for his own good
to try a change of air?
ANA. But can he go to Heaven if he wants to?
THE DEVIL. What's to prevent him?
ANA. Can anybody--can I go to Heaven if I want to?
THE DEVIL. [rather contemptuously] Certainly, if your taste lies that
way.
ANA. But why doesn't everybody go to Heaven, then?
THE STATUE. [chuckling] I can tell you that, my dear. It's because
heaven is the most angelically dull place in all creation: that's why.
THE DEVIL. His excellency the Commander puts it with military bluntness;
but the strain of living in Heaven is intolerable. There is a notion
that I was turned out of it; but as a matter of fact nothing could have
induced me to stay there. I simply left it and organized this place.
THE STATUE. I don't wonder at it. Nobody could stand an eternity of
heaven.
THE DEVIL. Oh, it suits some people. Let us be just, Commander: it is
a question of temperament. I don't admire the heavenly temperament: I
don't understand it: I don't know that I particularly want to understand
it; but it takes all sorts to make a universe. There is no accounting
for tastes: there are people who like it. I think Don Juan would like
it.
DON JUAN. But--pardon my frankness--could you really go back there if
you desired to; or are the grapes sour?
THE DEVIL. Back there! I often go back there. Have you never read the
book of Job? Have you any canonical authority for assuming that there is
any barrier between our circle and the other one?
ANA. But surely there is a great gulf fixed.
THE DEVIL. Dear lady: a parable must not be taken literally. The gulf
is the difference between the angelic and the diabolic temperament.
What more impassable gulf could you have? Think of what you have seen
on earth. There is no physical gulf between the philosopher's class room
and the bull ring; but the bull fighters do not come to the class room
for all that. Have you ever been in the country where I have the largest
following--England? There they have great racecourses, and also concert
rooms where they play the classical compositions of his Excellency's
friend Mozart. Those who go to the racecourses can stay away from them
and go to the classical concerts instead if they like: there is no law
against it; for Englishmen never will be slaves: they are free to do
whatever the Government and public opinion allows them to do. And the
classical concert is admitted to be a higher, more cultivated, poetic,
intellectual, ennobling place than the racecourse. But do the lovers of
racing desert their sport and flock to the concert room? Not they.
They would suffer there all the weariness the Commander has suffered in
heaven. There is the great gulf of the parable between the two places. A
mere physical gulf they could bridge; or at least I could bridge it for
them (the earth is full of Devil's Bridges); but the gulf of dislike
is impassable and eternal. And that is the only gulf that separates my
friends here from those who are invidiously called the blest.
ANA. I shall go to heaven at once.
THE STATUE. My child; one word of warning first. Let me complete my
friend Lucifer's similitude of the classical concert. At every one of
those concerts in England you will find rows of weary people who are
there, not because they really like classical music, but because they
think they ought to like it. Well, there is the same thing in heaven.
A number of people sit there in glory, not because they are happy, but
because they think they owe it to their position to be in heaven. They
are almost all English.
THE DEVIL. Yes: the Southerners give it up and join me just as you
have done. But the English really do not seem to know when they are
thoroughly miserable. An Englishman thinks he is moral when he is only
uncomfortable.
THE STATUE. In short, my daughter, if you go to Heaven without being
naturally qualified for it, you will not enjoy yourself there.
ANA. And who dares say that I am not naturally qualified for it? The
most distinguished princes of the Church have never questioned it. I owe
it to myself to leave this place at once.
THE DEVIL. [offended] As you please, Senora. I should have expected
better taste from you.
ANA. Father: I shall expect you to come with me. You cannot stay here.
What will people say?
THE STATUE. People! Why, the best people are here--princes of the church
and all. So few go to Heaven, and so many come here, that the blest,
once called a heavenly host, are a continually dwindling minority. The
saints, the fathers, the elect of long ago are the cranks, the faddists,
the outsiders of to-day.
THE DEVIL. It is true. From the beginning of my career I knew that I
should win in the long run by sheer weight of public opinion, in spite
of the long campaign of misrepresentation and calumny against me. At
bottom the universe is a constitutional one; and with such a majority as
mine I cannot be kept permanently out of office.
DON JUAN. I think, Ana, you had better stay here.
ANA. [jealously] You do not want me to go with you.
DON JUAN. Surely you do not want to enter Heaven in the company of a
reprobate like me.
ANA. All souls are equally precious. You repent, do you not?
DON JUAN. My dear Ana, you are silly. Do you suppose heaven is like
earth, where people persuade themselves that what is done can be undone
by repentance; that what is spoken can be unspoken by withdrawing it;
that what is true can be annihilated by a general agreement to give it
the lie? No: heaven is the home of the masters of reality: that is why I
am going thither.
ANA. Thank you: I am going to heaven for happiness. I have had quite
enough of reality on earth.
DON JUAN. Then you must stay here; for hell is the home of the unreal
and of the seekers for happiness. It is the only refuge from heaven,
which is, as I tell you, the home of the masters of reality, and from
earth, which is the home of the slaves of reality. The earth is a
nursery in which men and women play at being heros and heroines, saints
and sinners; but they are dragged down from their fool's paradise by
their bodies: hunger and cold and thirst, age and decay and disease,
death above all, make them slaves of reality: thrice a day meals must
be eaten and digested: thrice a century a new generation must be
engendered: ages of faith, of romance, and of science are all driven at
last to have but one prayer, "Make me a healthy animal." But here you
escape the tyranny of the flesh; for here you are not an animal at all:
you are a ghost, an appearance, an illusion, a convention, deathless,
ageless: in a word, bodiless. There are no social questions here, no
political questions, no religious questions, best of all, perhaps, no
sanitary questions. Here you call your appearance beauty, your emotions
love, your sentiments heroism, your aspirations virtue, just as you did
on earth; but here there are no hard facts to contradict you, no ironic
contrast of your needs with your pretensions, no human comedy, nothing
but a perpetual romance, a universal melodrama. As our German friend put
it in his poem, "the poetically nonsensical here is good sense; and the
Eternal Feminine draws us ever upward and on"--without getting us a step
farther. And yet you want to leave this paradise!
ANA. But if Hell be so beautiful as this, how glorious must heaven be!
The Devil, the Statue, and Don Juan all begin to speak at once in
violent protest; then stop, abashed.
DON JUAN. I beg your pardon.
THE DEVIL. Not at all. I interrupted you.
THE STATUE. You were going to say something.
DON JUAN. After you, gentlemen.
THE DEVIL. [to Don Juan] You have been so eloquent on the advantages of
my dominions that I leave you to do equal justice to the drawbacks of
the alternative establishment.
DON JUAN. In Heaven, as I picture it, dear lady, you live and work
instead of playing and pretending. You face things as they are; you
escape nothing but glamor; and your steadfastness and your peril are
your glory. If the play still goes on here and on earth, and all the
world is a stage, Heaven is at least behind the scenes. But Heaven
cannot be described by metaphor. Thither I shall go presently, because
there I hope to escape at last from lies and from the tedious, vulgar
pursuit of happiness, to spend my eons in contemplation--
THE STATUE. Ugh!
DON JUAN. Senor Commander: I do not blame your disgust: a picture
gallery is a dull place for a blind man. But even as you enjoy the
contemplation of such romantic mirages as beauty and pleasure; so would
I enjoy the contemplation of that which interests me above all things
namely, Life: the force that ever strives to attain greater power of
contemplating itself. What made this brain of mine, do you think? Not
the need to move my limbs; for a rat with half my brains moves as well
as I. Not merely the need to do, but the need to know what I do, lest in
my blind efforts to live I should be slaying myself.
THE STATUE. You would have slain yourself in your blind efforts to fence
but for my foot slipping, my friend.
DON JUAN. Audacious ribald: your laughter will finish in hideous boredom
before morning.
THE STATUE. Ha ha! Do you remember how I frightened you when I said
something like that to you from my pedestal in Seville? It sounds rather
flat without my trombones.
DON JUAN. They tell me it generally sounds flat with them, Commander.
ANA. Oh, do not interrupt with these frivolities, father. Is there
nothing in Heaven but contemplation, Juan?