Part 24 (1/2)

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. n.o.body 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 a.s.suming 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 impa.s.sable gulf could you have? Think of what you have seen on earth. There is no physical gulf between the philosopher's cla.s.s room and the bull ring; but the bull fighters do not come to the cla.s.s 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 cla.s.sical compositions of his Excellency's friend Mozart. Those who go to the racecourses can stay away from them and go to the cla.s.sical 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 cla.s.sical concert is admitted to be a higher, more cultivated, poetic, intellectual, enn.o.bling 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 impa.s.sable 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 cla.s.sical concert. At every one of those concerts in England you will find rows of weary people who are there, not because they really like cla.s.sical 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.