DON JUAN.
The happier, no: the wiser, yes.
That moment introduced me for the first time to myself, and, through myself, to the world.
I saw then how useless it is to attempt to impose conditions on the irresistible force of Life; to preach prudence, careful selection, virtue, honor, chastity—
ANA.
Don Juan: a word against chastity is an insult to me.
DON JUAN.
I say nothing against your chastity, Senora, since it took the form of a husband and twelve children.
What more could you have done had you been the most abandoned of women?
ANA.
I could have had twelve husbands and no children that's what I could have done, Juan.
And let me tell you that that would have made all the difference to the earth which I replenished.
THE STATUE.
Bravo Ana!
Juan: you are floored, quelled, annihilated.
DON JUAN.
No; for though that difference is the true essential difference—Dona Ana has, I admit, gone straight to the real point—yet it is not a difference of love or chastity, or even constancy; for twelve children by twelve different husbands would have replenished the earth perhaps more effectively.
Suppose my friend Ottavio had died when you were thirty, you would never have remained a widow: you were too beautiful.
Suppose the successor of Ottavio had died when you were forty, you would still have been irresistible; and a woman who marries twice marries three times if she becomes free to do so.
Twelve lawful children borne by one highly respectable lady to three different fathers is not impossible nor condemned by public opinion.
That such a lady may be more law abiding than the poor girl whom we used to spurn into the gutter for bearing one unlawful infant is no doubt true; but dare you say she is less self-indulgent?
ANA.
She is less virtuous: that is enough for me.
DON JUAN.
In that case, what is virtue but the Trade Unionism of the married?
Let us face the facts, dear Ana.
The Life Force respects marriage only because marriage is a contrivance of its own to secure the greatest number of children and the closest care of them.
For honor, chastity and all the rest of your moral figments it cares not a rap.
Marriage is the most licentious of human institutions—
ANA.
Juan!
THE STATUE. [protesting] Really!—
DON JUAN. [determinedly] I say the most licentious of human institutions: that is the secret of its popularity.
And a woman seeking a husband is the most unscrupulous of all the beasts of prey.
The confusion of marriage with morality has done more to destroy the conscience of the human race than any other single error.
Come, Ana! do not look shocked: you know better than any of us that marriage is a mantrap baited with simulated accomplishments and delusive idealizations.
When your sainted mother, by dint of scoldings and punishments, forced you to learn how to play half a dozen pieces on the spinet which she hated as much as you did—had she any other purpose than to delude your suitors into the belief that your husband would have in his home an angel who would fill it with melody, or at least play him to sleep after dinner?
You married my friend Ottavio: well, did you ever open the spinet from the hour when the Church united him to you?
ANA.
You are a fool, Juan.
A young married woman has something else to do than sit at the spinet without any support for her back; so she gets out of the habit of playing.
DON JUAN.
Not if she loves music.
No: believe me, she only throws away the bait when the bird is in the net.
ANA. [bitterly] And men, I suppose, never throw off the mask when their bird is in the net.
The husband never becomes negligent, selfish, brutal—oh never!
DON JUAN.
What do these recriminations prove, Ana?
Only that the hero is as gross an imposture as the heroine.
ANA. It is all nonsense: most marriages are perfectly comfortable.