Man and Superman and Three Other Plays (61 page)

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, Señora?

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, Señora, 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, Señora, 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 woman. There is some mistake: where can I have to 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, Señora: 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, Señora, 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, Señora, 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, Señora; 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, Señora. 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.”
^dy

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, Señora. 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, Señora: 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, Señora, 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 Doña 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 sound 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 fashions 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?