Man and Superman, George Bernard Shaw [hardest books to read txt] 📗

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.