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?