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 The Son of Don Juan
 
 IN SAME SERIES. 
 
 The Lady from the Sea. 
 
 A London Plane Tree, and other Poems. 
 
 Iphigenia in Delphi. 
 
 Mireio. 
 
 Lyrics. 
 
 A Minor Poet. 
 
 Concerning Cats. 
 
 A Chaplet from the Greek Anthology. 
 
 The Countess Kathleen. 
 
 The Love Songs of Robert Burns. 
 
 Love Songs of Ireland. 
 
 Retrospect, and other Poems. 
 
 Brand. 
 
 Mariana. By JOSE ECHEGARAY. 
 
 [/ Preparation.
 
 The Son of Don Juan 
 
 3 oACTS 
 
 by 
 
 JOSE ECHEGARAY 
 
 Translated by JAMES GRAHAM 
 
 CAMEO SERIES 
 
 T.FisberUnwin PaternosterSq 
 London E.G. MDCGCXCV. 
 
 f
 
 * t> 
 
 Jose Echegaray : a Sketch. 
 
 BY JAMES GRAHAM. 
 
 THE author of the plays here done into English was 
 born in Madrid on the Thursday in Holy Week of 
 sixty-three years ago. In spite of a fair indication to 
 go by, his friends are responsible for the curious 
 assertion that he himself does not know, or has not 
 taken the trouble to verify, the exact date of his birth. 
 A reference to familiar sources of chronology enables 
 us to make a respectful claim to better information on 
 the point than the person most concerned. So the 
 *i day of Senor Echegaray's birth may be fixed precisely 
 " as the igth of April, 1832. 
 
 The first three years of the dramatist's life were 
 v v passed in the capital of Spain. In 1835 he was 
 removed from Madrid by his father, who had just 
 obtained the appointment of Professor of Greek at 
 " the Institute of Murcia. It was in Murcia that Jos 
 s received the rudiments of his education ; and while 
 X still a child he entered the institute. Here he studied 
 Latin under Professor Soriano, Natural History under 
 Angel Girao, and Greek under his own father. The 
 -v. boy was early seen to be gifted with brain-power of 
 <C the first order. And being of a docile and amiable 
 ilature, of active and laborious habits, having the 

 
 6 JOSE ECHEGARAY : 
 
 advantage of excellent tutors, and being under the 
 supervision of a kind and cultured father, it is hardly 
 to be wondered at that his progress in learning was 
 great and rapid. From the first he displayed that 
 passion for mathematics which has never grown cool 
 in him throughout life. His interest in literature 
 itself was far from absorbing. He showed, indeed, 
 some liking for novels and romantic dramas. For 
 tragic writers of the stamp of Corneille and Racine he 
 could not conceal his disrelish, though the fairness of 
 his mind would never permit him to ignore or deny 
 the many beauties of the classic drama. When he 
 was fifteen years old he became Bachelor of Philo- 
 sophic Science, and proceeded to Madrid in the 
 month of October, 1847, to prepare for entrance into 
 the Escuela de Caminos. In this great school the 
 mathematical professor was Angel Riguelme, under 
 whose able tuition young Echegaray devoted himself 
 with increased ardour to his favourite study. His 
 affection for literature, it is true, had been gradually 
 strengthening. In the midst of his graver studies he 
 had also frequented the theatres. But he never failed 
 to return with an almost frenzied delight to the branch 
 of knowledge which afforded such food to his voracious 
 intellect. To use his own language, he " studied the 
 higher mathematics ferociously, ravenously." It has 
 been maintained that in all the records of Spanish 
 scientific history no one has ever been known to 
 devote more eager and profound study to mathe- 
 matics than Jose" Echegaray. His whole spirit 
 seemed to be inextricably identified with the subject, 
 to be indissolubly enchained to it. Mathematics 
 became for him the most absolute of necessities, the 
 supreme of joys. The following is an experience 
 related by a fellow student of Echegaray when both
 
 A SKETCH. 7 
 
 were at the Escuela de Caminos. " Every Saturday 
 our professor of mathematics was fond of setting us 
 problems of the most difficult kind, the solutions of 
 which we were expected to hand in on the Monday. 
 On a certain occasion the problem given out to us 
 was of such an excruciatingly intricate nature that the 
 huge majority of the class had to give up all hope of 
 mastering it. I was among the unsuccessful ones. I 
 had seen Saturday, Sunday, pass over without bring- 
 ing me nearer to a glimpse of light. On the Monday 
 morning I was all at once inspired with the idea of 
 going to Echegaray to obtain some hint on a question 
 which could not have failed to occupy his attention at 
 least as much as mine. It was an hour before the 
 time appointed for the opening of the Escuela and the 
 delivering up of the answers. I set out for Eche- 
 garay's lodging. I found my friend in his room. 
 The curtains were drawn and the shutters were 
 fastened over the windows. On the chimney-piece 
 was an expiring lamp. On the edge of the bed the 
 clothes of which were tossed about in much disorder 
 sat Echegaray in his nightshirt. His head was 
 bent, and he was in an attitude of deep thought. 
 The noise which I made on entrance was as unsuc- 
 cessful as my friendly greeting in withdrawing him 
 from his abstraction. He confined himself to raising 
 his hand with a gentle but expressive motion, and to 
 saying ' Hush ! ' Suddenly he bounded up, un- 
 dressed as he was, and, to my stupefaction, exclaim- 
 ing, { Here it is ! ' hurried across to a small board 
 close at hand. He commenced to draw lines upon 
 lines and circles upon circles, and dash down figures 
 here and there, till at length he said, ' The whole 
 night have I been thinking of that problem, and 
 look there ! ' And he drew back to show me the
 
 8 JOSri ECHEGARAY : 
 
 signs all fairly traced, the operation completed, the 
 problem solved. This rehearsed performance he 
 repeated in school that morning. He alone did it, to 
 the admiration and almost to the alarm of the pro- 
 fessor himself, who, I think, had really given out the 
 problem without much serious thought of any one 
 even attempting a solution." 
 
 Echegaray had entered the Escuela de Caminos in 
 1848. He finished his course of study in 1853, 
 carrying off with him the highest honours that the 
 institution could bestow, and being placed far and 
 away the first of all his contemporaries. Meanwhile 
 the literary and dramatic instinct lay almost entirely 
 asleep in him. It sprang up fitfully now and then in 
 a curiosity to assist at the initiatory performances of 
 pieces by first-rate, second-rate, and even third-rate 
 authors. Echegaray was always held up as an exem- 
 plary pupil ; he fulfilled his duties at school with 
 almost exaggerated obedience and scrupulousness ; 
 and yet once only once he ran out of the Escuela 
 de Caminos without permission that he might not be 
 too late to buy tickets for the first night of Ayala's 
 drama, " El Hombre de Estado." On leaving the 
 Escuela, then, in 1853, Echegaray had already seen 
 many dramas, and had read a vast number of French, 
 English, Italian, and Portuguese novels, ancient and 
 modern, of all kinds. But he had not himself essayed 
 anything in literature. He had not written a verse. 
 The making of verses appeared to him a thing quite 
 foreign to his nature. In this the enemies of Eche- 
 garay are affable enough, for once, to agree with him ; 
 and they remain constant to their belief when he has 
 long since had ample reason for changing his mind. 
 The mathematical rigidity and angularity of much of 
 his poetry, say these enemies, is not compensated for
 
 A SKETCH. 9 
 
 even by the daring originality of his conceptions, his 
 nobility of sentiment, the richness of his imagery, the 
 splendour of his language ; they deny to him, for 
 instance, the exquisite ease and melody of Espron- 
 ceda, the bird-like spontaneity and perhaps fatal 
 fluency of Jose* Zorilla. In short, during these days 
 of his dawning manhood, Echegaray had never 
 dreamed of being a poet, still less a dramatic genius. 
 
 The requirements of his profession as tutor of 
 mathematics, to which he now formally addressed 
 himself, took him to various important cities 
 Granada, Almeria, Palencia thus keeping him away 
 for years from the capital, where he was destined to 
 shine in whatever he undertook. At last the moment 
 came for his return to Madrid. He was elected Pro- 
 fessor of Mathematics at the Escuela de Caminos, at 
 the very institution where he had achieved such 
 triumphs as a boy and a young man, and where he 
 had left behind him so many pleasing remembrances. 
 And now his professional engagements, and the 
 extraneous tasks which he voluntarily imposed on 
 himself, scarcely left him time to breathe. During 
 the thirteen years of his occupation of the mathe- 
 matical chair an immense number of classes had the 
 advantage of his teaching of the Infinitesimal Cal- 
 culus, Theoretical and Applied Mechanics, Hydro- 
 statics, Curve-tracing, Descriptive Geometry and its 
 applications, Solid Geometry, and so on into the 
 dimmest heights of the science. During this time he 
 devoted himself to Political Economy, to Philosophy, 
 to Geology, and to another study, entered upon with 
 slight equipment by many men, very seriously and 
 with all his faculties by this man Politics. At the 
 Bolsa and the Free Exchange Propaganda he de- 
 livered orations full of subtle thought and sound
 
 IO JOS& ECHEGARAY : 
 
 doctrine ; in the Ateneo he spoke enthusiastically in 
 favour of pure democracy ; in presence of the Society 
 of Political Economy he pronounced numerous dis- 
 courses appropriate to their several occasions, and 
 distinguished by an order of eloquence which was 
 looked upon as remarkable, even in a capital where 
 almost every one seems endowed with the gift of 
 picturesque and ready speech. He published different 
 articles in the, Economzsta, La Razon, and other 
 periodicals it seeming impossible that he should 
 give his attention to multitudinous labours of this 
 kind, and at the same time devote eight or ten 
 hours of his days and nights to private lessons in 
 mathematics and to public lectures on other subjects, 
 among which were Physics and Naval and Military 
 Engineering. Such excessive work would have 
 paralysed a nature less vigorous than Echegaray's, 
 but in the continuance of a portion of it he was 
 unexpectedly stopped. The private lessons which he 
 had been giving would have raised an independence 
 for him. They were prohibited. Echegaray was 
 made a victim of the administrative despotism to 
 which the authorities of the Escuela de Caminos were 
 compelled to bow. He applied for a special license ; 
 it was refused. In his indignation he was about to 
 leave the Escuela. But there he was assured that 
 he would be acting ill-advisedly. If he indeed aban- 
 doned his career in defiance, he would forfeit all his 
 rights as a tutor in the public schools of Spain. The 
 earnest remonstrances of his friends, joined to the 
 promptings of his own reason, induced him to relin- 
 quish the design. His most powerful motive against 
 precipitancy was that he had not the heart to break 
 with the work of his whole life. He was the soul of 
 the Escuela. He had become indispensable, alike to
 
 A SKETCH. II 
 
 his fellow professors and to his pupils. Mathematics 
 consoled him for all his trials, and to them he con- 
 tinued to consecrate himself with a loving fervour 
 which even he had never surpassed. The mathe- 
 matical treatises which he then began to send forth 
 in rapid succession from the press will not be readily 
 allowed to die by the scientific world of Spain. 
 
 Being about this time commissioned by the 
 Spanish Government to study the works of tunnel 
 making at Mont Cenis, and having no opportunity of 
 doing so at leisure on his arrival, a very brief inspec- 
 tion sufficed for him to understand, or rather to guess, 
 the whole of the internal mechanical arrangements of 
 the perforators. And, thanks to this, and without 
 bringing away with him sketches or plans of any sort, 
 he, on his return to Spain, drew up a memorial with 
 the most detailed description a description subse- 
 quently proved accurate in all essential particulars 
 of the mechanism and procedure employed in the 
 enterprise. 
 
 All this while there had been nothing in Eche- 
 garay's tastes or performances that gave evidence of 
 the poet, the dramatist, or even, in any 'distinct form, 
 of the man of letters. His literary works, or rather 
 such works of his as had even a suspicion of literary 
 flavour about them, had been thus far confined to 
 certain political orations, to articles on Political 
 Economy, to publications on Mathematics, and to a 
 humorous little sketch entitled, "The Comet, or a 
 Carnival Joke," which appeared in a Madrid news- 
 paper. Echegaray's partiality for the reading of 
 novels and for the frequenting of theatres was the 
 same. Still there was no awakening within him of 
 any expressed ambition to write in emulation of those 
 whose productions he admired as a spectator.
 
 1 2 JOS6 ECHEGARAY : 
 
 Towards the year 1864 it was that Josh's brother 
 Miguel, then a mere lad, wrote a little piece in one 
 act and in verse entitled, " Cara o Cruz," which was 
 put on the stage, and was received in a friendly 
 manner. And Jose", equally startled and amused at 
 the spectacle of his boy brother writing smooth and 
 harmonious verse, rapidly acquired the conviction 
 that, after all, the writing of verses ought to have no 
 stupendous difficulty about it. He did not long delay 
 an experiment. He immediately set about putting 
 together an appalling tragic argument, which he ver- 
 sified with tolerable ease. In this fashion was com- 
 posed his first play. He kept it by him for a year. 
 Having in the meanwhile dedicated himself with 
 serious and characteristically energetic study to the 
 whole question of dramatic writing, he drew the piece 
 forth and read it a second time. He found it by no 
 means equal to his first complacent judgment of its 
 merits. He at once chose a safer hiding-place for it 
 than previously, and it has never seen the light. 
 Echegaray was becoming more and more immersed 
 in these new subjects of interest, when an interruption 
 came in the most notable public episode of his life. 
 The revolution of 1868, and the flight of Isabella, 
 launched him into the full tide of politics. His known 
 ability naturally fitted him for the playing of a pro- 
 minent part. He was very speedily selected for 
 Cabinet rank in the newly-formed Government. He 
 was created Minister for the Colonies. His new 
 duties, entered upon and sustained with vigour and 
 success, removed him for five years from the concerns 
 of literature and the drama. Towards 1873, on tne 
 dissolution of the Permanent Commission of the 
 Cortes, Echegaray's name was proscribed. He was 
 in imminent danger of death. He escaped to France.
 
 A SKETCH. 13 
 
 Eventually the ban was taken from his name, and his 
 life was preserved, through the commanding influence 
 of Emilio Castelar. This has been ever since grate- 
 fully acknowledged in a manner which does credit 
 alike to the great orator and the great dramatist. 
 
 In the meantime, during his comparatively brief 
 exile, Echegaray had written in Paris his drama, 
 " El Libro Talonario." It is the first of his pieces 
 which was put on the stage, and the date of its pro- 
 duction is February 18, 1874 not long after the 
 author's return to Spain. Nothing commonplace 
 could come from Echegaray, yet neither in style nor 
 in argument does the work give any revelation of the 
 future greatness of the writer. Very little better was 
 the reception accorded by the critics of Madrid to the 
 second performance of the new poet, " La Esposa del 
 Vengador," also produced in 1874. There was not 
 one, however, who failed to admit the numerous 
 beauties of either play. The third effort, " La Ultima 
 Noche," again, was declared to be a chaotic conjunc- 
 tion of graces and monstrosities : as a work of genius 
 unimpeachable ; as a display of true dramatic quality, 
 absurd. 
 
 On the other hand, the public of Madrid, roused to 
 the highest pitch of interest in the new career marked 
 out for himself by the celebrated mathematician, the 
 ex-Cabinet Minister, the returned exile, had been 
 receiving one after the other of his dramas with 
 delight. This was not enough for a man of such iron 
 will as Echegaray. He was deliberately bent on 
 subduing his critics. His three first dramas had 
 been experiments. He had been merely trying his 
 hand. 
 
 On the 1 2th of October, 1875, was produced " En 
 el puno de la Espada." The play was welcomed with
 
 J4 JOS6 ECHEGAKAY : 
 
 unanimous and boundless enthusiasm. The irregular 
 and fiery genius, whose only enemy seemed to be his 
 individual rashness, had stepped safely aside from 
 down-rushing avalanches and gaping precipices, had 
 scaled the heights reached by those few alone whose 
 names will live, and was looking down in security and 
 serenity alike on admiring critics and acclaiming 
 public. From that night the severest judges of the 
 Spanish capital recognised that there had come 
 among them a dramatist of the first rank. Since 
 that night Echegaray's career has been one long 
 triumphal march, his path strewn with flowers, his 
 eyes rejoiced with the smiles of countless friends, his 
 ears greeted with cries and songs of praise and envy. 
 
 One of the most noted peculiarities in the onward 
 course of Echegaray is the mixture of patient scorn 
 and fierce energy with which he declines to look upon 
 difficulties as insurmountable. Not merely in the 
 solution of a hard problem in mathematics, or in 
 clearing from his path the impediments which now 
 make him rule the theatre of Spain as a monarch, does 
 Echegaray show the force of his will. The rough term 
 in which Ancient Pistol sums up the attributes of the 
 Spaniard of Shakespeare's time could not be more ludi- 
 crously applied than to such a man as Jose Echegaray. 
 
 In our country it is natural to conceive that we 
 can pay no higher compliment to a man than by 
 proclaiming him to be even as one of ourselves. 
 Mr. Swinburne recognises and with infallible 
 justice "a decisive note of the English spirit in 
 Moliere," as well as in Rabelais. In one way, at 
 least, in the moral if not in the intellectual sense, in 
 his resolution to ignore defeat, however incongruous 
 be the task he may undertake, there appears to the 
 observer of Echegaray's career something strangely
 
 A SKETCH. 15 
 
 English. Two anecdotes may be given, alike as proofs 
 of his almost boundless versatility, and of his constancy 
 in breaking through seemingly impenetrable obstacles. 
 On one occasion, he being in a drawing-room with 
 several of his friends, among whom was a philosophical 
 critic of some renown, the conversation fell upon 
 German philosophy. Echegaray, who knew little of 
 the matter discussed, and less of the German tongue, 
 deemed it presumptuous to hazard an opinion for or 
 against the thesis advanced, and maintained an 
 absolute silence. Gradually, however, the debate 
 resolved itself into a dispute as to the possibility of 
 making an exhaustive study of a certain school of 
 philosophy within a relatively short period. There 
 can hardly be a more modest or amiable man than 
 Echegaray, and yet the mere breathing of the word 
 " impossibility " has been known at times to rouse 
 him into an attitude of imperial defiance almost 
 worthy of Caesar or Napoleon. He left the house 
 with the secret intention of proving that nothing is 
 difficult to a man with clear brain and indomitable 
 purpose. From that hour he devoted himself with 
 patient zeal to no less a task than that of studying 
 the special school of philosophy just argued about in 
 the very fountains from which it emanated, in the 
 original text of the German authors themselves. 
 With such effect did he apply himself that, two 
 months later, being in almost the same company, and 
 the conversation as the narrators will have it, with 
 the usual emphatic pointing to coincidence veering 
 round to the same theme, the new student of philo- 
 sophy displayed a depth of discernment, an acuteness 
 of independent thought, a readiness of argumentative 
 resource, a fertility of citation from the German 
 language itself, which confounded the listeners ; and
 
 1 6 osS ECHEGARAY 
 
 apart from the Congratulations on his new linguistic 
 acquirement, there was an unanimous admission that 
 Echegaray had expressed himself on the subject as a 
 master in the midst of novices. 
 
 Another time he was in the company of friends who 
 were engaged in a most exhaustive dissertation on 
 the art of fencing. Innumerable were the experiences 
 detailed in illustration of practice with the sabre, the 
 sword, and the foil. Those who were least excited by 
 the discussion turned now and then to Echegaray 
 with a courteous explanation and a general air of 
 respectful apology for treating of matters in which he 
 could take no conceivable interest. Echegaray, in 
 truth, had never held an offensive weapon in his hand. 
 Next day, however, he appeared at the rooms of one 
 of the best-known fencing masters of Madrid, enrolled 
 his name as a pupil, and took his first lesson instantly. 
 There are living eye-witnesses who tell how, three 
 months afterwards, the grave mathematician, the 
 coming lord of the Spanish drama, in a desperate 
 encounter with foils, repeatedly hit, and at length 
 actually disarmed his fencing master himself, amid 
 the intense amazement and uproarious enthusiasm of 
 bystanders, who counted among them some of the 
 most expert fencers in the Spanish capital. 
 
 Echegaray 's very career as a dramatist might in a 
 measure be described as a gigantic experiment in the 
 art of vanquishing difficulties, an elaborate and pro- 
 longed tour-de-force. He was a spectator of his 
 brother Miguel's boyish and successful entrance into 
 the domain of dramatic poetry. He saw nothing to 
 prevent himself from following in the same path. 
 His own prescription for writing verse is concise, and 
 contains a justification of his new departure. He 
 sums up the full requirements of a poet in " A little
 
 A SKETCH. 17 
 
 grammar, a little imagination, and a tolerable ear 
 for music." This is a matter-of-fact style of putting 
 things which may seem rather like a ruthless tear- 
 ing aside of the veil from a sanctuary that should 
 never be revealed to profane eyes. The great un- 
 published poets whose own works are the result of 
 the purest inspiration will resent it accordingly. Yet 
 there is reason for suspicion that Shakespeare might 
 have expressed himself on the dread mystery in some 
 such light-hearted manner as Echegaray. The 
 Spanish dramatist, however, omits one important 
 condition which he, at least, has well fulfilled. He 
 has all through life acted up to the letter of Carlyle's 
 teaching as to the "perennial nobleness and even 
 sacredness " of " Work." With him the main neces- 
 sity in all the ways of life is hard labour, untiring 
 drill, constant self-perfection. In his own example 
 he seems to declare that even poets cannot straightway 
 claim to be in the charmed circle of Mascarille's 
 " gens de qualite"" qui " savent tout sans avoir jamais 
 rien appris." 
 
 Perhaps one of the first things calculated to strike 
 a student of Echegaray is the^air of gloom which 
 overhangs many of his graver dramasy Instances 
 might be given in which a combination of nearly all 
 the elements of woe and despair, frequently leads to a 
 catastrophe, from the contemplation of which others 
 besides the mere hysterical reader will find it difficult 
 to turn away with calmness. Yet this writer may, in 
 a certain sense, be said to have in him something 
 of classic delicacy and reserve with regard, in 
 especial, to scenes of death. The introduction of 
 death upon the stage seems invariably a matter of 
 concern to him. Not that it is ever awkwardly 
 shrunk from. Indeed, when used as a last resort,
 
 1 8 JOSfi ECHEGARAY : 
 
 when " fear has had laid upon it as much as it can 
 bear," " when life is weaned and wearied till it is 
 ready to drop," then death in the hands of Echegaray 
 comes forward at times with the weight of an almost 
 overwhelming consummation. The Spanish drama- 
 tist, in short, may fairly claim a portion of that 
 pleasing reverence for the dead which all true artists 
 have. To adduce illustrations which must appear un- 
 fashionable in days when half a continent may be 
 depopulated, without much protest, in the course of a 
 single volume. The author of "Guy Mannering" 
 and the author of " Monte Cristo," in the very height 
 of the gaiety, the gallantry, the majesty of their 
 descriptions of their own and former times ; Dickens 
 and Thackeray, in the full flow of their mocking 
 indignation or their lacerating irony, will be seen all 
 at once to stop short. Their looks change. Their 
 tones become softened and their eyes downcast. 
 They uncover their heads and compel us to do the 
 same. For they have led us into the presence of the 
 dead ; and before the lowliest or the loftiest of their 
 fellows Meg Merrilies or the Abbe* Faria, Betty 
 Higden or Colonel Newcome these rare spirits 
 incline themselves in solemn veneration. 
 
 Of Echegaray's power over the pulses of sorrow 
 and terror, without the intervention of death, an 
 example may be found in " El Hijo de Don Juan." 
 And here, perhaps, a few words may not be out of 
 place, even in view of Echegaray's own " Prologue," 
 as to the true source of this drama. That it was 
 inspired by the reading of Ibsen's " Ghosts," we have 
 the Spaniard's own declaration. But were it permis- 
 sible to put aside the fact that both works treat of the 
 problem of heredity in its most hideous and harrowing 
 form, and the minor circumstance of the borrowing of
 
 A SKETCH, i 19 
 
 Oswald's phrase, " Mother, give me the sun ! " words 
 which, to the mind of Echegaray, embody such 
 picturesque and profound significance Mr. William 
 Archer himself might not be reluctant to admit the 
 essential originality of the Spanish play. The truth 
 is that " El Hijo de Don Juan " is a sombre and 
 relentless satire upon the real national hero of Spain, 
 the being immortalised by Molire and Mozart, and 
 more or less caricatured in the cruder imagination of 
 Jose" Zorilla. Don Juan, the gamester, the libertine, 
 the duellist, the bully, has been transported from the 
 sixteenth century to the nineteenth. He is in en- 
 tirely new surroundings and has become in a measure 
 reformed. We find him past the sixtieth year of his 
 age, with a wife whom he has indeed ill-treated, but 
 with a son of whom he never tires of boasting. The 
 disorders of his youth have left him with none the 
 strongest of brains. And now the sins of the parent, 
 in accordance with Echegaray's unsparing rule, are 
 visited upon the child. The father's own mental 
 weakness is developed in the most grim and terrible 
 form in the gifted son. And so the flames in which Don 
 Juan Tenorio was untimely plunged, are rekindled in 
 the hell of misery and remorse with which the heir to 
 his shameless renown sees the final overthrow of his 
 boy's intellect. It is hardly too much to say that the 
 "Ghosts" is almost bright and frolicsome in com- 
 parison with the " Son of Don Juan." Echegaray 
 has here deliberately chosen colours of funereal 
 blackness, and has laid them on with little regard for 
 the feelings of the sensitive reader. Ibsen leads us 
 to the edge of his own " Inferno," and points to the 
 pale faces of those whom his genius has condemned 
 to immortal suffering ; but he hurries us aside before 
 we have time to become giddy. , Echegaray drags
 
 2O JOS ECHEGARAY : 
 
 us pitilessly down and holds us fast, while in our very 
 presence his victims are whirled shrieking past us 
 borne along on burning winds, or stretched in agony 
 on the rack. Still with all deductions, the gift of 
 true impressiveness, which has been so abundantly 
 acknowledged in Ibsen, will scarcely be denied to 
 the Spaniard who so frankly admits the influence 
 of the Northern master. This impressiveness may 
 be set down to pathological causes, to the un- 
 wholesomeness of the subject, to the lugubrious 
 moral atmosphere in which a pessimist like Ibsen, a 
 teacher of Hebraic sternness like Echegaray, loves 
 at times to fold himself round. But whether the 
 effect of plays of this kind may or may not be 
 illegitimate, it is, perhaps, within its peculiar limits, 
 entirely unexampled. Plays of high name, plays filled 
 with scenes of violence, with the ring and storm of 
 battle, with midnight murder, with death in its worst 
 forms, might be placed for comparison beside the 
 " Son of Don Juan." And though there is not a death, 
 not a blow struck from beginning to end of the 
 Spanish drama, such plays, with all their accumula- 
 tions of misery and ferocity, might be found to yield 
 in the element of sheer horror to the spectacle of the 
 brilliant Lazarus, the poet, the dramatist, the coming 
 glory of Spain, waking from a trance under the 
 anguished eyes of his father, his mother, his betrothed, 
 and bursting into the ravings of a hopeless madman. 
 
 Of Echegaray's use of dramatic resources when he 
 indeed brings death upon the stage, a few examples 
 may be quoted. In " El Gran Galeoto " the sudden ex- 
 posure of the body of Julian to his unforgiven wife. 
 In " Mariana " the bloody sacrifice of the heroine 
 in presence of her real lover by the husband whom 
 she loathes and defies. Lover and husband stand
 
 A SKETCH. 21 
 
 armed over the corpse ; but the stage is not therefore 
 converted into a shambles ; we are merely left to con- 
 jecture that the two desperate men confronting each 
 other will not long survive the woman who has 
 coloured in such sinister fashion the lives of both. 
 Another example, more openly verging on the melodra- 
 matic, may be encountered in an earlier drama than 
 these, " En el seno de la Muerte." Here is one of the 
 rare instances in which Echegaray has chosen a purely 
 romantic period for the scene of his play. A husband, 
 treacherously wronged by the brother and the wife 
 whom he had almost equally loved, contrives his 
 revenge. He locks himself and the two culprits in 
 the family mausoleum, of which he alone has the key 
 and he alone knows the secret. He does not ignore, 
 they do not ignore, the fact that there is no escape for 
 any one of them. After a painful scene of reproach, 
 at the end of which the traitor brother kills himself, 
 the husband first throws the key which had locked 
 them in, then the torch which had illumined the 
 dismal magnificence of their surroundings, down a 
 deep cavity which yawns between the monuments. 
 Finally, in utter darkness", he stabs himst'f dead at 
 his wife's feet ; and the curtain falls amicst an un- 
 definable impression of haunting dismay at the alter- 
 natives of fate before the lonely survivor. V 
 
 For obvious reasons Echegaray has b^-n here 
 referred to in connection with Ibsen. Whether an 
 apology for such a conjunction of names mi^ht in 
 reason be demanded by the most loyal of Ibsenites is 
 doubtful, under the present conditions of criticism. It 
 cannot but be a source of relief to any one helping to 
 introduce a new author to the public, that the process 
 of comparison has been simplified of late ; that the 
 qualifications exacted from competitors are drawn up
 
 22 JOSE ECHEGARAY i 
 
 in a spirit of charming leniency ; that the certificate 
 of immortality is made more than ever easy of attain- 
 ment. Some years ago a writer thought fit, not only 
 without seeming sense of shame, but with the com- 
 placent air of one who sees " a new planet swim into 
 his ken," to couple the names of Mr. Rudyard Kipling 
 and Charles Dickens. It must have been under the 
 inspiration of such criticism as this that Shakespeare 
 was immediately dethroned for at least the hundredth 
 time and once again at the hands of " our lively 
 neighbour the Gaul." Corneille, Racine, and Victor 
 Hugo were allowed to slumber tranquilly in their 
 graves, and it was admitted on behalf of England by 
 the Paris Figaro that the author of " Othello " was 
 surpassed by M. Maurice Maeterlinck. Even under 
 these encouraging circumstances, however, it will not 
 be here contended that Senor Echegaray shows in his 
 work anything comparable "et oserai-je le dire," 
 as M. Mirbeau rvould say " superieure en beaute a 
 ce qu'il y a de plus beau dans Shakespeare." It might 
 be suggested tW.it "Mariana" Senor Echegaray's 
 masterpiece in/female creation would have been 
 readily accept/id as a companion with Charmian and 
 Iras in attendance on the most complex of all heroines 
 Cleopatra. Further than this it will not be safe 
 to go. 
 
 Echer aray may be noted as displaying, even in the 
 following mournful drama, a genuine and, as a rule, 
 unforced sense of humour. In his comic passages, 
 ho .vever, he has a fault which he shares with Shakes- 
 peare and the editor of Punch. He is a remorseless 
 punster. 
 
 This poet's genius, as may have been remarked, burst 
 into bloom at a time beyond the midsummer of life. 
 He was forty-two before his first drama was produced.
 
 A SKETCH. 23 
 
 That is twenty-one years ago. Since then his activity 
 has never known exhaustion. He is now the author of 
 some fifty plays. There are particular years among 
 the past twenty-one in the course of which he has put 
 upon the stage as many as four dramas, not one of 
 which is carelessly written, though one imitation from 
 the German, "El Gladiador de Ravena," was com- 
 menced and completed within three days. During 
 these twenty-one years, indeed, he appears to have 
 determined on making up for what, in other important 
 respects, had certainly not been lost time. Civil 
 engineers have found and still find it to their advan- 
 tage to consult him on points which are the special 
 study and occupation of their lives. He has published 
 three formidable volumes on the " Modern Theories 
 of Physics." A well-known book of his has appeared 
 on sub-marine vessels of war. He has lectured on 
 Political Economy and Geology with equal success. 
 He is admitted by Spaniards to be the chief of their 
 own mathematicians ; they further claim for him the 
 honour of being one of the first mathematicians in the 
 world. He is an orator who has won the applause of 
 Castelar himself. There were only wanting his labours 
 as a poet and a dramatist to set the seal upon a career 
 of almost universal aptitude. Those labours have 
 earned for him a renown which will assuredly not be 
 allowed to die in his own country. 
 
 Be the praise high or low, in view of the condition 
 of Spanish literature between the seventeenth century 
 and the nineteenth, Spaniards declare that for more 
 than two hundred years their drama has not brought 
 forth a serious rival to this man. And there can hardly 
 be a doubt that, in any selection of names of the 
 greatest dramatists ever sprung from Spain, Lope de 
 Vega and Calderon de la Barca will find the place 
 nearest to themselves occupied by Jose Echegaray.

 
 TWO WORDS BY WAY OF PROLOGUE. 
 
 T N trying to interpret the idea of my last drama, 
 * "The Son of Don Juan," the critics have said 
 many things. That the idea was the same as that 
 which inspired Ibsen in his celebrated work entitled 
 " Gengangere." That the passions which it sets in 
 movement are more natural to the countries of the 
 North than to our sunnier climes : that it deals with 
 the problem of hereditary lunacy. That it discusses 
 the law of heredity. That it is sombre and lugubrious, 
 with no other object than that of arousing horror. 
 That it is a purely pathological drama. That it con- 
 tains nothing more than the progress of a case of 
 lunacy. That from the moment when it is perceived 
 that Lazarus will go mad, the interest of the work 
 ceases, and nothing remains but to follow step by step 
 the shipwreck of the poor creature and so forth. I 
 think that all this is but a series of lamentable equivo- 
 cations on the part of the great and little judges of 
 the dramatic art. The idea of my drama was not one 
 of those mentioned. Its motive is very different, but 
 I shall not explain it. Why should -ULJ In all the 
 scenes of my work, in all its personages, in nearly all 
 its phrases it is explained. Moreover, to explain it 
 2 as
 
 26 PROLOGUE. 
 
 would be dangerous ; it might be imagined that my 
 proposal was to defend the poor Son of Don Juan 
 under the pretext of exposing the central idea from 
 which he drew birth. I never defend my dramas ; 
 when I write their last word I leave them to their fate. 
 I neither defend them materially nor morally. I finish 
 a drama, I give it to the management of a theatre, it is 
 put on the stage, it is liked or not liked, according to 
 the favour of God. The management does what is 
 most suited to its interests, without my interference : 
 the actors represent it as they can, almost always very 
 well, the public pronounces its judgment in one sense 
 or another, according to its feelings, and the critics 
 unbosom themselves to their satisfaction^ I neither 
 wish nor ought, ifconly from good taste, to defend my 
 new drama ; bujfit contains one phrase which is not 
 mine, which is Ibserts ; and that phrase I must defend 
 energetically, for I consider it one of extraordinary 
 beauty : " Mother, give me the sun,'' says Lazarus. 
 And this phrase, simple, infantile, almost comic, en- 
 folds a world of ideas, an ocean of sentiments, a hell 
 of sorrows, a cruel lesson, a supreme warning to society 
 and to the family circle. Thus I look at it. A gene- 
 ration devoured by vice ; which bears even in its 
 bones the virus engendered by impure love ; with a 
 corrupted blood which in its course drags along organ- 
 isms of corruption mingled with its ruddy globules, 
 this generation goes on falling and falling into the 
 abysses of idiocy : the cry of Lazarus is the last twilight 
 of a reason which founders in the eternal blackness of 
 imbecilityj And at the same time nature awakes and 
 the sun comes forth another twilight which will very 
 soon be all light. And the two twilights meet and 
 cross and salute each other with the salutation of 
 everlasting farewell at the close of the drama.
 
 PROLOGUE. 27 
 
 Reason, which is precipitated downward, impelled by 
 the corruption of pleasure. The sun, which springs 
 upward with immortal flames, impelled by the sublime 
 forces of nature. Below, human reason which has 
 come to an end ; above, the sun which begins a new 
 day. " Give me the sun," says Lazarus to his mother. 
 Don Juan likewise asked for it from between the 
 tresses of the woman of Tarifa. On this point there is 
 much to be said : it gives room for much thought. 
 For, in truth, if our society. . . . But what the devil 
 are these philosophical speculations that I am plung- 
 ing into ? Let every man compose such for himself 
 as best he may, and let him clamour for the sun or 
 beg for the horns of the moon, or ask for what suits 
 his appetite. Does nobody understand or take an 
 interest in these matters ? What then ? This, at 
 most would prove that the modern Don Juan con- 
 tinues to bequeath many sons to the world, though 
 they have not the talent of Lazarus. Let us give a 
 respectful greeting to the sons of Don Juan. 
 
 JOSE ECHEGARAY.
 
 CARMEN. 
 
 DONA DOLORES. 
 
 PACA. 
 
 TERESA. 
 
 LAZARUS. 
 
 DON JUAN. 
 
 DON TIMOTEO. 
 
 DOCTOR BERMUDEZ. 
 
 JAVIER. 
 
 DON NEMESIO. 
 
 First represented March 29, 1892. 
 
 {Rights of adaptation atui stage representation reserved.}
 
 ACT I. 
 
 The scene represents a room for business or study. It 
 is mounted in elegant yet severe taste, with some- 
 thing of a worldly style, indicated by some artistic 
 object which betrays predilections of that kind. 
 On the left of the spectator is a very light and 
 charming tea-table, to accommodate three or four 
 persons j upon the table is a candle or night-light 
 with a bright-coloured shade ; and surrounding 
 it are three small arm-chairs or cushioned seats 
 and smoking chairs . On the right is a desk not 
 very large, though massive and sober in style : 
 behind, a chair or writing stool. At the side of 
 the desk a high stool or better still an arm-chair. 
 Upon the desk a lighted lamp with a dark shade. 
 Also on the desk, in a framed easel, the photograph 
 of CARMEN. On the left first wing a balcony, to 
 the right a fireplace with a very bright fire : at 
 one side a large portative screen. Over the doors 
 and the balcony thick, sober-hued curtains. A 
 door in the background, and a door at either side. 
 If it be possible, there should also be in the back- 
 ground a small bookcase, dark and rich : at the 
 left forming a pendant, a cabinet, dark like the 
 bookcase, and full of objects of art. If this be im- 
 ~possible^ two equivalent pieces of furniture. In 
 short, a room which gives evidence of rich though
 
 32 THE SON OF DON JUAN. 
 
 not opulent possessors, andjwhich above all denotes 
 ^Jythe contrast of two tastes: the one austere, tht 
 
 '. - _ .-. . ^^^^^ rrwi y __ _ ^ 
 
 other gay and worldly. It is night. 
 
 SCENE. 
 
 DON JUAN, and DON TIMOTEO, DON NEMESIO dis- 
 covered seated round the tea-table, drinking strong 
 liqueurs and smoking. The three are old, but 
 give token of different types : the three bear the 
 stamp of life-long self-indulgence. It is recognised, 
 however, that DON JUAN^<M been a man of gaiety 
 and fashion. 
 
 JUAN. Timoteo ! 
 
 TIM. What ? 
 
 JUAN. I have a suspicion. 
 
 TIM. What about ? 
 
 JUAN. That we are getting old. 
 
 TIM. How have you got to know ? 
 
 JUAN. I'll tell you : there are symptoms. When 
 the weather changes all my joints are sore. When I 
 wish to stretch out this leg merrily, it entails labour 
 on me, and in the end it is the other leg which moves. 
 Moreover my sight is failing : when I see a dark girl 
 in the street, she looks fair to me ; and if a girl 
 happens to be fair, she becomes so obscured as to 
 turn dark before my eyes. 
 
 NEM. That's weakness ; you should take a tonic. 
 (Drinks.) 
 
 JUAN. My stomach cannot endure alcohol now : I 
 drink out of compliment ; but I know that it does me 
 harm. 
 
 TIM. Because it is not the alcohol of our time.
 
 THE SON OF DON JUAN. 33 
 
 NEM. This is corrosive sublimate alcoholised. 
 
 TIM. It is the alcohol which has grown old. 
 ( Walks about jauntily.} I feel young still Ah ! 
 
 JUAN. What's the matter ? 
 
 TIM. While simply moving I seem to have dis- 
 jointed my whole vertebral column. The devil, the 
 devil ! 
 
 NEM. (drinking calmly). Something or other will 
 have got dislocated. 
 
 JUAN. Let us undeceive ourselves : we are nearing 
 the City of Old Age. By the life of life, how short is 
 life 1 (Strikes the chair with his fist.} Ah ! 
 
 TIM. What ails you? 
 
 JUAN. A pain in the elbow and in this shoulder. 
 
 NEM. The weather ; it's damp. (Drinks.} 
 
 TIM. Juanito, you have never been very strong. 
 
 JUAN. I have not been ? I have not been ? I have 
 been stronger than you all. For twenty-four hours 
 running I have played cards : for three days running 
 I have been shut up with Pacorro and Luis emptying 
 bottles : and my patron Saint Juan Tenorio, from the 
 heaven where he dwells in company with Dona Inez, 
 will have seen how I have borne myself in amorous 
 enterprises. You, on the other handj have been 
 nothing more than the braggadocios of vice. Away 
 with such lay-figures. 
 
 TIM. We don't deny that you have been a greater 
 madcap than anybody else ; but strong what's called 
 a strong man that you have not been. 
 
 NEM. You have not been that confess. 
 
 JUAN. What have I to confess ? 
 
 TIM. Something has happened to you which never 
 happened to any one else. 
 
 JUAN. What happened to me ? 
 
 TIM. In order to get your spine straightened you
 
 34 THK SON OF DON JUAN. 
 
 had to be put in a casing of paste, and they used to 
 hang you up by the neck twice a day. 
 
 JUAN. But that was because we were playing at 
 single stick in the Plaza de Toros, and they broke 
 two of my ribs ; that might happen to anybody. 
 
 TIM. No, no : you were not like us. Do you re- 
 member, Nemesio ? " Where is Juanito ? " " In 
 bed." " Where is Juanito ? " " At Panticosa." 
 "Where is Juanito?" "At Archena." "Where is 
 Juanito ? " " Shut up in his casing." " Where is 
 Juanito?" "At this moment they must be hanging 
 him." Ha, ha ! 
 
 TIM. and NEM. laugh. DON JUAN looks at them 
 angrily. 
 
 JUAN. Don't laugh very loud, or we shall have a 
 general breaking up. I have been a man and you 
 two have been pitiful fellows. You (to TIM.), got 
 married at forty : you locked yourself up in a corner 
 of this town with your wife, and there was an end of 
 Timoteo. You (to NEM.), flying like a coward from 
 the storms of the world, took refuge in Arganda, 
 where you drink each year the vintage of the year 
 before. I, on the other hand (speaking "with proud 
 emphasis)^ I it is true that I also got married at 
 forty-two ; but that's no proof of weakness. If Don 
 Juan Tenorio had been allowed the time, he would 
 have married Dona Inez, and indeed there is a rumour 
 that -they celebrated their mystic wedding in heaven. 
 But I, the other Don Juan, got married like a man, 
 like a free citizen ; yet I did not thereupon abandon 
 the field of honour. I am myself at home, myself 
 abroad, at nine in the convent, at ten in this street. 
 Well, then I had my Lazarus ! Eh ! There's a lad ! 
 That's what it is to have a son.
 
 THE SON OF DON JUAN. 35 
 
 TIM. God help me, with your glorious triumph ! 
 Jump into the street, and you won't see a neighbour 
 who is not the son of somebody. Each individual has 
 a father. 
 
 NEM. One father at least. 
 
 JUAN. Yes, but I was the libertine ; I was the man 
 that drained the cup of pleasure and the cask from the 
 wine-cellar : the invalid of the orgie. " That fellow 
 is consumptive," they used to say. " That fellow will 
 die some morning," you thought. And suddenly I 
 became restored to life in Lazarus. Lazarus is my 
 resurrection. And how robust and strong he is. And 
 what talent he has ! A prodigy a Byron, an 
 Espronceda, an Edgar Poe a genius. That's not 
 what I alone say : you have it written in all the 
 journals of Madrid. 
 
 TIM. Yes, the lad is able. 
 
 NEM. He is able. 
 
 JUAN. Well, now, frankly he who has led the life 
 that I have led he who while saying : " I must rest 
 for a time," has a son like Lazarus : that man is he 
 not a man, indeed ? 
 
 TIM. Fine subject of rejoicing for a Tenorio. 
 
 JUAN. What subject ? 
 
 TIM. This of yours. Does it not come to this that 
 you are the father of a genius ? 
 
 JUAN. And what then, dotards? Strength is 
 strength, and becomes transformed : you don't under- 
 stand this. I make no doubt that I had all the genius 
 of Lazarus concealed in some corner of my brain ; 
 but as I gave it neither time nor opportunity it could 
 not exhibit itself. At last it grew tired of wait- 
 ing, and it said : " Eh ! I am going with the son, 
 because with the father I can make no headway." 
 (Laughing.)
 
 36 THE SON OF DON JUAN. 
 
 TIM. Don't delude yourself, Juanito. The talent of 
 Lazarus, for indeed he seems to have great talent, is 
 not inherited from you : he must have derived it from 
 his mother. /The paternal heritage will have been 
 some rheumatism, some affection of the nervesV 
 
 NEM. The sediments of pleasure and the dregs of 
 alcohol. (Drinks.) 
 
 JUAN. Blockheads I I went through my school- 
 days badly, and I lived worse ; but there was some- 
 thing in me. 
 
 TIM. Quite a genius frittered away ori a lost soul. 
 
 JUAN. It may be so. 
 
 NEM. And by what did you recognise this some- 
 thing? 
 
 TIM. When was it ? 
 
 NEM. And where ? 
 
 JUAN. It was on awaking from a drunken bout. 
 
 TlM. Now that you are going to ascend to the 
 sublime don't say a drunken bout. 
 
 JUAN. Well then, on arising from an orgie. 
 
 NEM. That's well. "To Jarifa in an Orgie," 
 Espronceda. (Drinks.) 
 
 JUAN. Yes, senor, the very thing. I once felt that 
 which neither of you ever experienced. 
 
 NEM. Tell us, tell us. This ought to be curious. 
 Another little glass, Timoteo. 
 
 TIM. Come. To the health of the disappointed 
 genius. (Coughing.) 
 
 NEM. Of the unsuccessful genius. (Drinks.) 
 
 DON JUAN is thoughtful. 
 
 TIM. Begin. 
 
 JUAN. You remember the season we passed at 
 my country seat in Sevilla, in the year in the 
 year ?
 
 THE Sox OF DON JUAN. 37 
 
 TINT. The year I don't recollect but very well 
 do I remember the country-house, on the banks 
 of the Guadalquivir, with an Oriental saloon, divans, 
 carpets those famous carpets. 
 
 NEM. True, true ! I was always walking on them. 
 Aniceta, the little gipsy you remember? used to 
 cry out, " I am sinking, I am sinking." 
 
 TIM. True, true I and as she was so little she used 
 to sink out of sight, really. 
 
 NEM. Delightful time. Don Juan's country seat 
 so we called it. 
 
 TIM. What I liked was that running balcony or 
 gallery, or whatever it was. What a view ! The 
 Guadalquivir ! And it looked towards the East -you 
 saw the sun risej it was enchanting. (To JUAN.) 
 Have you fallen asleep ? 
 
 JUAN. I ? I never sleep. That's what I should 
 like to sleep. For this is the way I pass the night 
 with a wrench of this nerve and a wrench at the other. 
 The little pain which is in the neighbourhood of my 
 elbow goes for a walk. My cough appears before it 
 and says, " Good evening, neighbour." My head 
 cries out, " I am going to waltz for a while, stand 
 away there." And my stomach heaves, "No, for 
 God's sake ; I shall be sea-sick." Sleep, indeed ! 
 It's ten years since I have slept. 
 
 NEM. But you are not telling us the story. 
 
 JUAN. What story ? 
 
 TIM. Why, man, that about the fiery outbreak of 
 genius. When you learned that you had something 
 inside here. (Touching his forehead.} Something 
 sublime, eh ? 
 
 NEM. I should think so, corrosive sublimate. Ha, 
 ha ! Another little glass. 
 
 TlM. Come. However, we are left at where you
 
 38 THE SON OF DON JUAN. 
 
 got to know once upon a time that you were a larva- 
 like genius like the pulmonary larvae. 
 
 JUAN. I got to know it. There's nothing to laugh 
 at. 
 
 NEM. In your country seat by the Guadalquivir ? 
 
 JUAN. The very same. 
 
 TIM. In the Oriental saloon the one with the 
 divans, the balcony looking towards the East and the 
 Persian carpet ? 
 
 JUAN. Exactly. 
 
 TIM. During a night of orgies ? 
 
 JUAN. No next morning on awaking. 
 
 TIM. On awaking from the orgie ! " Bring hither, 
 Jarifa, bring hither thine hand come and place it 
 upon my brow ! " (Taking the hand oj "DON NEMESIO.) 
 
 NEM. (^withdrawing his hand}. Your brow is all 
 right. Ha, ha ! Don't make me laugh. 
 
 TIM. Then look thine hand a pure branch of the 
 vine. 
 
 JUAN. Don't you want to hear me ? 
 
 NEM. I should think so. Tell your story. 
 
 TIM. But you must tell it seriously, solemnly, 
 dramatically. The awaking of Don Juan after a 
 night of orgies. 
 
 JUAN. Then here goes. 
 
 NEM. and TIM. take convenient positions for 
 listening to him. 
 
 It was a grand night a grand supper. There were 
 eight of us each with a partner. Everybody was 
 drunk even the Guadalquivir. Aniceta appeared on 
 the gallery and began to cry out, " Stupid, insipid, 
 waterish river, drink wine for once ! " and she threw 
 a bottle of Manzanilla into it. 
 TIM. She was very lively, Aniceta. She once
 
 THK SON OF DON JUAN. 
 
 threw a bottle of wine at my head but it 
 empty. 
 
 NEM. Your head? 
 
 TIM. The bottle. Continue, continue 
 seriously eh ? 
 
 JUAN. Well, I was lying asleep along the floor, 
 upon the carpet, close to a divan. And on the 
 divan there had fallen by one of the usual accidents, 
 the Tarifena Paca, the Tarifena. Nobody noticed 
 it, and on the divan she lay asleep. Amidst her 
 tossings to and fro, her hair had become loose a 
 huge mass ! and it fell over me in silky waves a 
 great quantity. 
 
 NEM. JtfoUike Timoteo's. (TIMOTEO t's bald.} - 
 
 JUAN. Not hTce Timoteo's. But if you interrupt me 
 I shall lose the inspiration. 
 
 TIM. Continue continue, seriously, Juanito. 
 
 JUAN. We leave off at where I was asleep on the 
 carpet, when the loosened hair of the Tarifena fell 
 over my head and face, enfolding me as in a splendid A^ ' 
 black mantle of perfumed lace. Would you like any- 
 thing more serious"? 
 
 TIM. It goes well so. 
 
 NEM. Keep yourself to that height. , 
 
 TIM. To the height of the carpet? 
 
 NEM. Each one mounts to the height of which he 
 is worthy. Go on. 
 
 JUAN. The dawn arriyed. It was summer. 
 
 TIM. And yet it rained. 
 
 JUAN. No, my dear fellow, a delightful morning : 
 the balcony open : the East with splendid curtains of 
 mist and of little red clouds, the sky blue and stain- 
 less, a light more vivid kindling into flame the distant 
 horizon. 
 
 TIM. So, so to that height.
 
 4 THE SON OF DON JUAN. 
 
 NEM. Very poetical, very poetical don't fall off. 
 
 JUAN. Slowly the crimson globe ascended. I 
 opened my eyes wide, and I_jsaw_the sun^ I saw it 
 from between the interwoven tresses of the Tarifena 
 it inundated me with its light, and I stretched forth 
 my hand instinctively to grasp it. Something of a 
 new kind of love, a new desire agitated me. Great 
 brightness, much azure, very broad spheres, vague 
 yet burning aspirations for something very beautiful. 
 For a minute I understood that there is something 
 higher than the pleasure of the senses : for a minute 
 I felt myself another being. I wafted a kiss to the 
 sun, and pulled aside in anger the girl's hair. One 
 lock clung about my lips it touched my palate and 
 gave me nausea. I flung away the tress I awoke 
 the Tarifena and vice dawned through the remains 
 
 Lof the orgie, like the sun through the vapours of 
 the night, its mists and its fire-coloured clouds. 
 - TlM. Good for Juanito. We are moved, profoundly 
 moved. 
 
 NEM. Unfathomably moved. (Drinks^) 
 
 TlM. But with what object have you told us all that 
 I don't remember. 
 
 JUAN. To prove to you that there have existed 
 within me noble aspirations. 
 
 TIM. Ah ! yes, sublime desires. 
 
 NEM. Superhuman longings. 
 
 JUAN. Quite so : and that everything which was 
 deprived of the opportunity of making itself known in 
 me, or which ran to waste through other channels 
 will revive in my Lazarus in the forms of talent, 
 inspiration, genius, wings that flutter, creations that 
 spring forth, applause, glory, immorality. Ah ! you'll 
 see you'll see. 
 
 TIM. Your posthumous blowing off of steam.
 
 THE SON OF DON JUAN. 41 
 
 JUAN. My last and most pure illusion no, the 
 only pure illusion of my existence. And you ought 
 to be glad that my son is getting on so well, you 
 scapegrace. {GivftyTUL a playful slap.) 
 
 TIM. I? 
 
 NEM. Ah, ah I I understand you. Another glass 
 to the health of the bride and bridegroom. 
 
 JUAN. Eh ? What do you say? (To DON T.) 
 
 TlM. Ah, yes ; no, it is impossible. My poor 
 Garments very much in love : but I don't know if 
 LazaruS 
 
 JUAN. Lazarus is mad about her. He is reserved 
 enough, but he is mad. 
 
 TIM. Well, look ; if the sdh is going to resemble the 
 papa I should be very sorry to form the relationship, 
 frankly. 
 
 JUAN. Much obliged to you, venerable grandfather. 
 
 NEM. No, Lazarus is very steady. 
 
 TlM. The fact is that my girl is very weak, very 
 delicate, a sensitive plant. Her poor chest troubles 
 her with the least thing ; and if Lazarus were to lead 
 my poor Carmen the life which you have led your 
 wife, I should renounce the relationship and the 
 Honour which you propose to me. 
 
 JUAN. Gently, gently ; I have been an irreproach- 
 able husband. 
 
 TIM. Oh ! 
 
 NEM. Ah ! 
 
 JUAN. Irreproachable. My wife has always been 
 first in my affections. 
 
 TIM. But you have had a second, and a third 
 
 NEM. And a fourth and a fifth. 
 
 JUAN. Those are lawful requirements of the system 
 of numeration. 
 
 NEM. Peace between the future fathers-in-law. The
 
 24 THE SON OF DON JUAN. 
 
 one is as good as the other ; the one is just as gay as 
 the other ; and one is quite as sedate a father of a 
 family as the other. 
 
 JUAN. And of course you must be better than we 
 are ! You who have been steeped in alcohol from 
 your tenderest years. 
 
 NEM. Between the bottle and the woman, I cling 
 to the bottle. 
 
 TIM. Well, I to the woman. 
 
 JUAN. Let us not exaggerate : being between the 
 bottle and the woman one remains just the same 
 between the bottle and the woman. 
 
 TIM. Not quite : we now remain at home between 
 our own woman and the bottle of tisan two tisans. 
 
 NEM. Because you are a pair of dotards. I am 
 every night at the theatre, in my little box : from ten 
 to twelve I consecrate myself to art. Some dancers 
 have come from Madrid. Sweet zephyrs ! Four 
 zephyrs ! 
 
 JUAN (in a loud voice and erecting Jiintsf.lf Ijhp. an 
 old cock}. Are they pretty ? 
 
 TIM. Your wife will hear you. 
 
 JUAN (lowering his voice in exaggerated style). 
 Are they pretty ? 
 
 NEM. Four flowers, four stars, four goddesses, the 
 four cardinal points of beauty. What eyes ! What 
 waists ! What vigour ! What cushion-like bodies. 
 
 JUAN. Cushion-like? 
 
 NEM. Nothing artificial. 
 
 JUAN. Nothing artificial? And you are going to 
 the theatre now ? 
 
 NEM. I go there to finish the night as God com- 
 mands in admiring the marvels of creation. (Rising.) 
 
 TIM. Then I'll accompany you, and we shall both 
 admire them. (Rising.)
 
 THE SON OF DON JUAN. 43 
 
 JUAN. Well, I'll not stay at home. I'll go there 
 with you two and we shall all three admire them. 
 (Rising with difficulty.} 
 
 NEM. At this time of night, Juanito ? 
 
 JUAN. You two are going at this time of night. 
 
 TlM. And what will your wife say ? 
 
 JUAN. For twenty-five years my wife has said 
 nothing. Besides, I give orders here. No one ever 
 calls me to account. Ho, there, I'll be back in a 
 moment. Ho, there ! . [Exit. 
 
 NEM. I think that poor Juan is getting to the end 
 of his tether. Don't you see how he walks ? What 
 things he says 1 What pitiful senilities ! 
 
 TIM. Yet he is not very old. 
 
 NEM. What should make him old? He is little 
 more than sixty. Every man who respects himself 
 is sixty years old. ( Walking about somewhat jauntily.) 
 
 TIM. Precisely : you are sixty, I am sixty, every 
 well-conditioned person is sixty. 
 
 NEM. But he has lived ! What a life he has lived ! 
 This is what I say : people may be guilty of follies : 
 you have been guilty of them : I have been guilty of 
 them 
 
 TIM. And every well-behaved person is guilty of 
 them. 
 
 NEM. But up to a certain point. 
 
 TIM. Up to a certain point. 
 
 NEM. But poor Juan was old at forty. And Lazarus 
 is not what his father says no, senor 
 
 TIM. Well, talent he has much talent. All the 
 newspapers of Madrid assert it ; you see it now. 
 That he is a prodigy that he will be a glory to the 
 nation. 
 
 NEM. I don't deny it. But walk with care before 
 marrying little Carmen to him.
 
 44 THE SON OF DON JUAN. 
 
 TIM. Why? The devil! Why? Is he like his 
 father ? 
 
 NEM. No ! Like the father no. Inclined to gaiety 
 yes. What would you have the son of Don Juan to 
 be? 
 
 TIM. Everybody is inclined to gaiety. I am so, 
 you are so 
 
 NEM. It is not that. It is that according to my 
 information (lowering his voice) he is not so robust as 
 the papa supposes. Lazarus suffers from vertigo 
 nervouAAttacks what shall I say? something of that 
 sort. At long intervals, it's true; but that head of 
 his is not strong. That's why he does such stupendous 
 things, and that's why they call him a genius. Don't 
 trust men of genius, Timoteo. A genius goes along 
 the street, and every one says, " The genius ! the 
 genius ! " He turns round the corner, and the little 
 boys in the next street run after him shouting : " The 
 madman ! the madman ! " Timoteo, it is very- 
 dangerous to have much cleverness. 
 
 TlM. God deliver us from it. Oh ! as to that I 
 have always been very careful. 
 
 NEM. So have I. A man should not be altogether 
 a fool ; that's not well. But the thing is don't be a 
 genius. 
 
 TlM. Never. Here's Juan coming back. 
 
 NEM. Say nothing to him of what I have told you. 
 They either don't know of the sufferings of Lazarus, 
 or they hide them ; it's natural. 
 
 TIM. Not a word ! but it's well to know it. 
 Re-enter DON JUAN. 
 
 JUAN (dressed for going out). Are we ready? 
 
 TIM. We are. 
 
 JUAN. Then let's march. Listen. (To TIM.) Will 
 you come back for Carmen, or must we take her?
 
 THE SON OF DON JUAN. 45 
 
 TIM. Carmen? 
 
 JUAN. Yes, Carmen. Have you already forgotten 
 that she is in there with Dolores ? 
 
 TIM. It's true. 
 
 JUAN. What a head ! Ha, ha ! And you say that 
 
 I ? He forgets his own daughter ! It would 
 
 have been easy for me to forget my Lazarus. What 
 a fellow you are ! What a fellow you are ! Away 
 with you for a pair of wooden-heads ! (Laughing!) 
 
 TIM. You gay young dog, lead us on to glory and 
 to pleasure ! 
 
 JUAN. I shall lead you on to the cemetery if you 
 annoy me any more. However, what do you decide ? 
 Will you come back to fetch Carmen ? 
 
 TIM. I shall have to come back to carry you home. 
 
 JUAN. You carry me? You'd never be able to 
 carry any one. 
 
 NEM. I shall carry you both. Come, give me your 
 arm, Juanito. If not you can't go down the staircase. 
 (DON JUAN takes his arm.} 
 
 JUAN. Teresa little Teresa. 
 
 TERESA enters from the back centre. 
 
 TER. Senor? 
 
 JUAN. Tell Dolores tell your mistress that I am 
 going out. Let Senorita Carmen wait until her 
 father returns to fetch her. March on. (To TIM.) 
 Take hold of me, for you are not very strong. Take 
 hold of me. 
 
 TlM. March on. 
 
 NEM. March on. 
 
 JUAN. Military step ! One two 
 
 TIM (looking at TERESA). This girl's prettier every 
 day. 
 
 NEM. (the same). And fresher.
 
 46 THE SON OF DON JUAN. 
 
 JUAN (to NEM). You are not looking; you will fall. 
 
 TER. Where are you going, senor ? 
 
 JUAN. To take these two to the lunatic asylum. 
 [Exeunt laughing and clutching each other's arms . 
 
 TER. (looking from the back}. Well, when you get 
 in there, may they never let you out. Where are 
 those mummies going ? 
 
 Enter DONA DOLORES and CARMEN from the 
 
 right. 
 
 CAR. Ah ! They are not here. Papa is not here. 
 DOL. Have they gone out ? 
 
 TER. Yes, senora. But Don Juan left word that 
 Senorita Carmen's papa would come back to take her 
 home. 
 
 CARMEN coughs. 
 
 DOL. Coughing again ! You ought not to go out 
 at night ; the doctor has forbidden you. You don't 
 take care of yourself. You are a little simpleton. Sick 
 children should be in their little homes. 
 
 CAR. When I am alone I am very sad. I had 
 rather cough than be sad. 
 
 DOL. Not so ; I shall go and bear you company. 
 And I shall bring Lazarus. I don't wish my sick 
 child, my darling child to be melancholy. (Fondling 
 her.} 
 
 CARMEN coughs. 
 Again ! 
 
 CAR. It's not worth speaking of. 
 
 DOL. The fact is that no one can breathe here. 
 What an atmosphere ! What smoke ! What a smell 
 of tobacco. 
 
 TER. The three ancient gentlemen were all the 
 night drinking and smoking and laughing. Now you 
 see how they have left everything. 
 
 DOL. Yes, I see. (Looking with disgust at the
 
 THE SON OF DON JUAN. 47 
 
 little table which is full of ashes and ends of cigars 
 and covered -with bottles, glasses, and -waiters' trays.) 
 Take these things away ; clean everything up ; open 
 the balcony. I am not accustomed yet after twenty- 
 five years I should have grown accustomed. (Aside.) 
 The poetry of existence ! (Laughing bitterly.) 
 
 CAR. What are you laughing at, Dolores ? 
 
 DOL. (changing her tone and feigning merriment). 
 I feel amused, very much amused at the frolics of 
 those three venerable old men. 
 
 CAR. Papa is not yet an old man. 
 
 DOL. He is not: but what a life he has led. (Re- 
 collecting herself.) So laborious his business his 
 commerce the same as Juan. 
 
 CAR. Ah yes. Parents are all alike, killing them- 
 selves for their children. Snd papa Is very good. 
 He loves me my God ! At night he gets up I don't 
 know how many times and listens at the door of my 
 room to know if I am coughing, so that I, who hear 
 him, stifle the cough with my handkerchief or with 
 the bed-clothes ; but sometimes I am not able it is 
 that I am choking. (Coughs.) 
 
 DOL. (to TERESA who has been meanwhile taking 
 away bottles, ash-trays, waiters' 1 trays, and who has 
 entered and gone out several times). Open the 
 balcony ! Let in the fresh, pure air. No, wait. (To 
 CARMEN.) You could not bear the sensation, my 
 poor little one. Come. (Taking her by the hand.) 
 
 CAR. Where to ? 
 
 DOL. While the room is being ventilated you must 
 remain like a quiet little girl behind this curtain. 
 (Placing her behind the curtain to the right.) A quiet 
 little girl, eh ? Afterwards you shall enter. 
 
 CAR. (laughing). Are you leaving me in punish- 
 ment?
 
 THE SON OF DON JUAN. 
 
 'OL. In punishment ! Your father is very in- 
 dulgent, I am very severe. 
 
 CAR. Good ; but your punishment does not last 
 long. 
 
 DOL. Not very long. (To TERESA.) Go : I shall 
 open it. {Exit TERESA. 
 
 DOLORES opens the balcony. 
 
 So ! Air the air of night space freshness that 
 which is pure that which is great that which does 
 not revolt one that which dilates the lungs that 
 which expands the soul ! To have a very broad 
 horizon which one may fill with hopes, and to run 
 towards those hopes ! At least hope ! Hope ! Oh ! 
 I cannot complain. I have my Lazarus then I have 
 everything. 
 
 CAR. (putting her head from time to time through 
 the curtain). May I come out ? 
 
 DOL. No, not yet ; wait quiet, my little one. 
 ( Walking from the balcony to the fireplace?) To have 
 my son ! But without him ever having had a father 
 above all, that father ! Oh, if my Lazarus had 
 sprung spontaneously from my love! Even as as 
 the wave of the sea or the light of the sun springs 
 forth. After all, let me not complain even if he 
 resembled though he does not resemble his father, 
 Lazarus'is mine and mine only. How good ! How 
 noble. What intellect ! What a heart ! Oh, what 
 it is to have such a son ! 
 
 CAR. May I come in ? 
 
 DOL. Ah, yes wait though I shall first shut the 
 balcony. (Shuts it.) Come in. 
 
 CAR. That's very different. (Breathing with 
 pleasure.) 
 
 DOL. You feel well ?
 
 THE SON OF DON JUAN. 49 
 
 CAR. Very well. 
 
 DOL. What are you looking at ? 
 
 CAR. The clock to see what time it is. It is 
 getting late : Lazarus is not coming. (Sadly.) 
 
 DOL. It is not late, my child. Come and sit by 
 me. 
 
 CAR. Yes, it is late, it is late. 
 
 DOL. Lazarus will come soon. He knew that you 
 were coming this evening, and he will not fail. 
 
 CAR. (sorrowfully). But he would do wrong to 
 inconvenience himself for me. If he does not see me 
 now, he'll see me another day. 
 
 DOL. You silly child, are you complaining ? 
 
 CAR, Not at all. My God ! He has his engage- 
 ments, and he must not sacrifice himself for Carmen. 
 
 DOL. Carmen deserves it all ; and Carmen knows 
 it ; don't be a little hypocrite. 
 
 CAR. No, senora, I speak as I think, and that's 
 what gives me much pain and makes me quick at 
 finding fault. You fondle me and love me, as if you 
 were my own mother, now that I no longer have one. 
 You watch over our love the love of Lazarus and 
 myself. I am sure you tell Lazarus that I am this 
 and that in short, a prodigy. And you swear to me 
 that Lazarus is mad for the love of his Carmen. But 
 is all this true ? Can it be so ? Am I worthy of 
 Lazarus ? Can such a man as he feel the passion 
 which you describe to. me for a poor creature like 
 myself? 
 
 DOL. Come, now I shall get vexed. Don't say 
 such things. Why, have you never looked into the 
 glass? 
 
 CAR. Yes, many times every day. 
 
 DOL. And what does the glass tell you ? 
 
 CAR. That I am very pale, that I am very thin, 
 
 3
 
 THE SON OF DON JUAN. 
 
 that I have very sad eyes, and that I rather resemble 
 a mother of sorrows than a girl of eighteen. That's 
 what it tells me, and it causes me a rather unpleasant 
 feeling. 
 
 DOL. There are very malevolent mirrors, and yours 
 is one of them. (In a comic tone.) They take the 
 form of boats to give us long faces ; they get blurred 
 to make us pale ; they become stained to sow freckles 
 all over our skins ; and they commit every kind of 
 wickedness. Yours is a criminal looking-glass ; I'll 
 send you one in which you may see what you are, and 
 you shall see an angel gazing through a tiny window 
 of crystal. 
 
 CAR. Yes. (Laughs.) But even if I were the most 
 beautiful woman in the world, could I be worthy of 
 Lazarus ? A man like him 1 A future such as his ! 
 A talent which all admire. Nay, a superior being. I 
 love him much ; but it makes me afraid and ashamed 
 that he should know that I love him so much. I feel 
 as if he were going to say to me : " But who are you, 
 you little simpleton ? Have you imagined that I am 
 meant for an unsubstantial, ignorant, sickly little thing 
 like you ? " (Sadly and humbly.) 
 
 DOL. Well, Carmen, if you don't wish to make me 
 angry, you will not talk such folly. A good woman is 
 worth more than all the learned men of all the Acade- 
 mies. And if, as well as being good, she is pretty, 
 then then there's an end, there is no man who is 
 worthy of her. Men, with the exception of Lazarus, 
 are either mean-spirited wretches or heartless devils. 
 (In a rancorous tone.) 
 
 CAR. Well, papa is very good, and is very fond of me. 
 
 DOL. Ah, yes a very good person. But, if he had 
 been so fond of you, he would have done better to give 
 you stronger lungs.
 
 THE SON OF DON JUAN. 51 
 
 CAR. But, poor man, how is he to blame? If God 
 did not wish 
 
 DOL. Ah ! yes, that's true. It is not Don Timoteo's 
 fault. It was God's disposition that Carmen should 
 have no more breathing powers than those of a little 
 pigeon, and we must be resigned. 
 
 CAR. Well, that's what I say. But Lazarus is not 
 coming. You'll see that I shall have to go away 
 before he comes. And, if he comes and sets to work, 
 I shall be as little likely to see him to-night. 
 
 DOL. No ; he has not written for some days. The 
 excess of work has fatigued him. This constant 
 thought is very wasting. 
 
 CAR. But is he ill ? ( With great anxiety.} 
 
 DOL. No, child ; fatigue, and nothing more. 
 
 CAR. Yes ; Jie is ill. I noticed that he was sad, 
 preoccupied, but I thought, " There, it is that he does 
 not love me, and he does not know how to tell me so." 
 
 DOL. What things you imagine ! Neither the one 
 nor the other. My Lazarus ill ! Do you think that if 
 he had been so I would not have set in motion all the 
 first medical faculty here, and in Madrid, and in foreign 
 parts ? In any way, however (so)newhat uneasily], you 
 are right ; he is very late. 
 
 CAR. Did he go to the theatre ? 
 
 DOL. No, to dine with some friends. 
 
 CAR. Did Javier go? 
 
 DOL. He went also.- 
 
 CAR. I am glad ; Javier is very sensible. 
 
 DOL. So is Lazarus. 
 
 CAR. I should think so ; but a good friend is never 
 superfluous, and Javier has admiration, affection, and 
 respect for Lazarus. 
 
 DOL. (walking about impatiently). Still, it is getting 
 late very late. 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF ILLlNOr
 
 52 THE SON OF DON JUAN. 
 
 CARMEN turns towards the balcony, 
 
 What are you going to do ? 
 
 CAR. Well, to watch and see if Lazarus is coming. 
 
 DOL. (drawing her away from the balcony). No, 
 child ; you don't think of your poor chest, nor of that 
 most obstinate cough of yours. Moreover, the night 
 is very dark, and you could see nothing. Come away, 
 Carmen, come away ; I'll watch. 
 
 CAR. If I can't see, neither will you see 
 
 DOL. I shall try. 
 
 CAR. Wait ; I think he is coming, and with Javier. 
 
 DOL. (listening). Yes it's true. 
 
 CAR. Are they not coming in here ? 
 
 DOL. No ; they have gone straight to the room of 
 Lazarus. But don't be uneasy ; as soon as he knows 
 that you are here, he will come to see you. 
 
 CAR. Without doubt he comes back thinking of 
 some great scene for his drama, or of some chapter 
 of that book which he is writing and which they say 
 is going to be a miracle of genius, or of some very 
 intricate problem. Ah ! my God, whatever you may 
 say, a man such as he cannot concern himself very 
 much about an insignificant girl like myself. 
 
 DOL. Again ! 
 
 CAR. I know nothing, I am worth nothing, I am 
 nothing. I ? What am I fit for ? Tell me. To stare 
 at him like a blockhead while he is considering these 
 great matters ; to watch at the balcony and see if he 
 is coming, although it may be cold, and Carmen 
 coughs incessantly ; to weep if he takes no notice of 
 me, or if they tell me that he is ill. There is no doubt 
 that little Carmen is capable of doing wonders. To 
 J look at him, tcuwait for him T to weep for him. 
 
 DOL. And what more can a woman do for a man ?
 
 THE SON OF DON JUAN. 53 
 
 To look at him always, to wait for him always, to weep 
 for him always. 
 
 CAR. And is that enough ? 
 
 DOL. So much the worse for Lazarus if that should 
 not be enough for him. But wait ; he's here now ; 
 did I not tell you ? as soon as he knew you were here. 
 
 CAR. (joyfully}. It's true. How good he is. 
 
 Enter JAVIER. 
 
 JAV. A pleasant evening, Dona Dolores ; pleasant 
 evening, Carmen. 
 
 DOL. A very good evening. 
 
 CAR. And a very pleasant but Lazarus 
 
 DOL. Is not Lazarus coming ? 
 
 CAR. Is he ill? 
 
 DOL. Ah ! if he is ill, I must go there 
 
 JAV. (stopping her). No, for God's sake ! What 
 should make him ill ? Listen to me. We and several 
 friends have been dining with two writers from Madrid 
 people of our profession. We spoke of arts, of 
 sciences, of politics, of philosophy, and of everything 
 divine and human. We drank, we gave toasts, we 
 made speeches, we read verses. You understand? 
 And these things excite in an extraordinary way the 
 nervous system of Lazarus. 
 
 DOL. And has anything gone wrong with him? 
 My God ! 
 
 CAR. Go, Dolores go ! 
 
 JAV. For the sake of God in heaven, let me con- 
 clude. These things, I say, shake his nerves, and his 
 imagination becomes on fire ; it soon discovers lumi- 
 nous horizons ; the ideas rush upon him precipitately. 
 Could you take upon yourselves the burden of them ? 
 No ; that which came with the fever of inspiration he 
 wished to take advantage of, and for that reason
 
 54 THE Sox OF DON JUAN. 
 
 precisely for that reason he locked himself up in his 
 room and sent me away. 
 
 CAR. (sadly to DOLORES). Did I not say so ? He 
 would come and to work. 
 
 DOL. Does he not know that Carmen is here ? 
 
 JAV. They told us that on our entrance; but he 
 /pays attention to nothing, to nobody, when inspiration 
 \and glory and art cry aloud to him, "Come, we are 
 waiting for you." 
 
 DOL. However (Wishing to go.} 
 
 CAR. No, for God's sakejj (Stopping her.} He 
 must^e~inowed^to worTT Tf through me he should 
 lose any of those grand ideas which now hover fondly 
 about him, what pain and what remorse for me ! 
 Disturb him that he may come and speak to me? 
 No, not so ; I am not so selfish. I asked for nothing 
 better. By no means can I consent. (Embraces 
 DOLORES ; coughs and almost weeps.} 
 
 DOL. (with anxiety}. What's the matter with you? 
 
 CAR. (affecting merriment}. Nothing ; it is only that 
 I had begun to laugh and cough at the same time. I 
 laughed because I was reminded of a tale a very 
 silly tale, which made me laugh, however, and which 
 fits the case. You shall judge. There was a very 
 sprightly little female donkey, which became enam- 
 oured of a most beautiful genius, who bore on his 
 forehead a very red little flame, and had very white 
 wings; and the bright genius, out of pure compassion, 
 fondled the ears of the little donkey; and she, in 
 accordance with her nature, began to leap for joy, and 
 it overthrew the genius, clipped his wings, and he 
 could fly no more. The blue of the firmament was 
 cut off from the genius, and there was left to him 
 nothing more than a very green meadow, a little 
 female donkey who was very good, but who was, after
 
 THE SON OF DON JUAN. 55 
 
 all, a donkey. No, mother, I don't wish to be the 
 heroine of the story. Let us allow the genius to fly. 
 
 DOL. (to JAVIER). See what a creature she is ! 
 
 JAV. A criminal humility. 
 
 DOL. But, indeed, if you persist, we shall let him 
 work. 
 
 CAR. Don't you think we might let him have this 
 room free to himself? Here he has his books of 
 predilection, and he has more room, and he can walk 
 about ; he has told me many times that he composes 
 verses while walking about. 
 
 DOL. A good idea ! Let us go to my sitting-room. 
 (To JAVIER.) Tell him that we abandoned the field 
 to him, and that he may come without fear. 
 
 JAV. (laughing). Noble sacrifice ! 
 
 DOL. But we'll have to make up the fire ; since we 
 opened the balcony a while ago the room has become 
 very cold. (Stirring the fire.} 
 
 CAR. It's true. But let him not receive the full 
 heat. We must place the screen in front so. 
 (Places it.) 
 
 DOL. It is well so. 
 
 CAR. (going to the balcony and raising the curtain). 
 Look look ! The sky has become a little cleared, 
 and the moon has issued from the clouds. Very 
 beautiful ! Very beautiful ! We must draw the 
 curtain back, that Lazarus may see it all and be the 
 more inspired. I know he likes to work while gazing 
 towards the heavens from time to time. 
 
 DOL. (running to help CARMEN). You are right ; 
 you think of everything. 
 
 JAV. Well, if after so many precautions and such 
 endearments the inspiration is not responsive, the 
 inspiration of Lazarus is hard to please. 
 
 CAR. Is everything ready now?
 
 56 THE SON OF DON JUAN. 
 
 DOL. I think so. Wait your portrait is hidden in 
 the shade. We must place it so that the lamp may 
 throw light on it, so that he may be inspired by it 
 also. 
 
 CAR. I inspire him ? Yes yes ! Take it away. 
 ( Wishing to remove it.) 
 
 DOL. I shall not allow it. Let it remain where I 
 have put it, and let us go. 
 
 CAR. If you insist well, then let him see it. But 
 there is not much light. (Turning up the light of the 
 lamp.) 
 
 DOL. (to JAVIER). Call him let him come. 
 
 CAR. Yes, let him come and write something very 
 beautiful. Then I shall enter for a moment, to bid 
 him good-night. 
 
 DOL. Until then come, Carmen. 
 
 CAR. (to JAVIER). And you, too, leave him alone ; 
 you must not have any more privileges than we. 
 
 DOL. Are you coming to keep us company ? 
 
 JAV. Later on. 
 
 CAR. Is everything in order? (Looking round.) 
 
 DOL. I think so. Adieu. 
 
 CAR. Adieu ! 
 
 < 
 
 [Exeunt to left CARMEN and DOLORES, halj 
 embracing each other. 
 
 JAV. The field is clear. Poor women ! How they 
 love him ! It is adoration. (Going to right.) Lazarus ! 
 Good-for-nothing ! Now you can come come, if you 
 can ! 
 Enter LAZARUS, pale, somewhat in disorder, and with 
 
 unsteady step ; in short, as the actor may think Jit. 
 
 LAZ. (looking about). Are they not here ? 
 
 JAV. No ; fortunately it occurred to them that you 
 would work better alone.
 
 THE SON OF DON JUAN. 
 
 LAZ. Well, whatever you say, I think that I 
 presentable. Eh ? My head doesn't feel bad a 
 delicious vagueness. I seem to be encircled by a 
 mist a very soft mist ; and through its texture there 
 shine some little stars. In short, peaceful sensations, 
 very peaceful. 
 
 JAV. That's to say, you are better ? 
 
 LAZ. Don't I tell you so? My legs indeed give 
 way, but without pain. I walk in the midst of softness. 
 (Laughing!) My head among the clouds and the 
 ground of cotton-wool. Divine ! So ought the 
 universe to be that is, quilted. Lord ! what a world 
 has been made of it so rough, so hard, so inconve- 
 nient. At every step you stumble and injure yourself 
 rocks, rugged stones, sharp points, peaks, angles, 
 and little corners and big corners. The world should 
 be round quite so, and round it is ; roundness is 
 perfection ; but it should be an immeasurable sphere 
 of eider-down, so that, if a citizen falls, he may always 
 fall amid softness thus ! (Letting himself fall in the 
 arm-chair, or on one of the cushioned stools at the side 
 of the table.} 
 
 JAV. All very well but you really are not strong. 
 
 LAZ. I am not strong ? Stronger than you stronger 
 than you. Stronger. 
 
 JAV. I told you that you should not drink. It does 
 you harm ; your health is broken down. 
 
 LAZ. I'm broken down? I? How? I have not 
 been a saint, but neither have I been a madman. I 
 am young : I have always thought that I was strong : 
 and, through drinking two or three glasses, and 
 smoking a puro and laughing a little here am I 
 transformed into a stupid being ! Because, now, it is 
 not that I am broken down, as you say, nor that I am 
 drunk, as you suppose it is that I feel simply stupjd.
 
 58 THE SON OF DON JUAN. 
 
 No ; and see, now, it is not so disagreeable to be 
 stupid : one feels a sort of merriment, as it were. 
 That's why so many people are merry. (Laughing!) 
 That's why ! That's why ! Now I am falling into 
 this same stupidity that's why, just so. 
 
 JAV. Attend to me, and understand what I say to 
 you, if you are in a condition to understand me. 
 
 LAZ. If I can understand you ? I understand 
 everything now. The world is transparent to me : 
 your head is made of crystal (laughing), and written 
 in very black and tortuous letters I read your 
 thought you suppose I am very bad. Poor Javier ! 
 (Laughing!) 
 
 JAV. Don't talk such rubbish : I neither think such 
 a thing, nor are you really ill. Fatigue, weariness 
 nothing more. You have lived very fast in Madrid 
 during the last few years : you have thought much, 
 you have worked much, you have had a good deal of 
 pleasure, and you need a few months' rest here in 
 your father's house, with your mother, with Carmen. 
 
 LAZ. Carmen yes look at her. (Pointing to the 
 photograph!) There she is. How sad, how poetical, 
 how adorable a countenance. I wish to live for her. 
 With all the glory that I achieve I shall make a circle 
 of light for that dear, pretty little head. (Sends a kiss 
 to the portrait?) We shall live together, you and I, 
 my sweet little Carmen, and we shall be very happy. 
 (As if speaking with her.) For I wish to live. 
 (Growing excited and turning to JAVIER.) If I had 
 never lived it would never have suggested itself to me 
 that I should continue to live : but I have commenced, 
 and I don't wish to break off so soon. No no it 
 shall not be as God lives. 
 
 JAV. Come, Lazarus. 
 
 LAZ. I am strong. Why should I not be so?
 
 THE SON OF DON JUAN. 59 
 
 What right has nature to make of me a feeble creature 
 whea I wish to be strong? My thought burns, my 
 heart leaps, my veins abound with the exuberance of 
 life, my desires are aflame ! To put steam of a thou- 
 sand atmospheres into an old and rusty boiler ! Oh ! 
 infamous mockery ! 
 
 JAV. Eh ! There you are, started off ! What 
 steam, or what boiler ? The little glass of cham- 
 pagne. 
 
 LAZ. A man like myself cannot be tormented with 
 impunity. Here you have the world : it is yours : 
 run merrily through its valleys, mount its summits in 
 triumph ! But you shall not run, you shall not / 
 mount, unless rheumatism is planted in your bones. 
 Here you have the azure firmament : it is yours : fly 
 among its altitudes, gaze upon its horizons. But you 
 shall not fly except the plumage of your wings be 
 wrenched away and you become a worm-eaten car- 
 cass. What derision ! What satire ! What cruelty! 
 Accursed wine ! What extravagant things I see, 
 Javier ! Colossal figures in masks float across the 
 firmament, and, hung from very long strings, which 
 are suspended from very long canes, they bear suns 
 and splendours and stars, and they sweep onward 
 crying, " Hurrah ! hurrah I" 1 and I wish to reach all 
 that, and I cannot touch even one little star with my 
 lips. Grotesque, very grotesque ! Cruel ! very cruel ! 
 Sorrowful, very sorrowful ! My God ! My God ! 
 {He hides his face in his hands.) 
 
 JAV. Come, Lazarus, come. You see you cannot 
 commit even the slightest excess. 
 
 LAZ. I ha've uttered many follies, have I not ? No 
 
 1 The original "al higui ! al higui ! " is a term of rejoicing 
 peculiar to children in their games. It is only used in the South 
 of Spain.
 
 THE SON OF DON JUAN. 
 
 matter : no one hears me but you, and it's a relief to 
 me. See, now I am more composed. I feel tred, 
 and I even think I am sleepy. 
 
 JAV. That would be best for you : sleep, sleep, 
 and let neither your mother nor Carmen ste you 
 thus. 
 
 LAZ. As for my mother, it would not matter. 
 (Smiling.') But, Carmen let not Carmen see me 
 looking ridiculous. The poor girl who imagines that 
 I am a superior being ! Poor child, what a joke ! 
 (Stretches himself on the sofa.} 
 
 JAV. Good ; now don't speak. I shall not speak 
 either ; and try to sleep. With half an hour of sleep 
 everything will pass off. 
 
 LAZ. /Sleep, too, is ridiculous at times If I am 
 very ridiculous don't let Carmen see me. 
 
 JAV. No ; if you don't look as beautiful as Endy- 
 mion she shall not enter. / 
 
 Pause. JAVIER walks about. LAZARUS begins to 
 sleep. 
 
 LAZ. Javier, Javier. 
 
 JAV. What? 
 
 LAZ. Now I am almost asleep. How do I look ? 
 
 JAV. Very poetical. 
 
 LAZ. Good thank you. Very poetical. 
 
 A pause. 
 
 "* JAV. No, Lazarus is not well. I shall speak to 
 his father no, not to Don Juan. To his mother, 
 \ who is the only person of sense in this house. 
 
 LAZ. Javier. 
 
 JAV. What do you want ? 
 
 LAZ. Put Carmen's picture more to the front. 
 
 JAV. So? 
 
 LAZ. So. For her the light ; for Lazarus the 
 gloom.
 
 THE SON OF DON JUAN. 61 
 
 JAV. (walking about slowly). Yes, I shall speak to 
 his mother. And happy coincidence ! I had not 
 remembered that the celebrated Doctor Bermudez, a 
 specialist in all that relates to the nervous system, has 
 arrived within the last few days. Then to him ! let 
 them consult with him. 
 
 LAZ. (now almost asleep). Javier. 
 
 JAV. But are you not going to sleepj* 
 
 LAZ. Yes but more in the light more in the light. 
 ( With a somewhat sorrowful accent.) 
 
 JAV. Come (placing the portrait close to the light) 
 and silence. 
 
 LAZ. Yes . . . Carmen ! . . . 
 
 JAV. (contemplating him for a while.) Thank God 
 asleep. 
 
 DOLORES, CARMEN, DON JUAN, and TmoiEj appear 
 at the threshold of the door at the back centre. 
 
 CAR. May we come in ? 
 
 JAV. Silence ! 
 
 CAR. It was to say good-night. 
 
 JAV. He is asleep. He worked a short time, but he 
 was fatigued. 
 
 CAR. Then let us not disturb him. Adieu, Javier. 
 The light is in his eyes you should lower the shade. 
 Adieu. (Kissing DOLORES.) Adieu, Don Juan.} 
 
 TIM. (to DOL.) Till to-morrow. (To DON J.) Till 
 to-morrow. 
 
 JUAN. Nor shall we let to-morrow go by. I shall 
 pay you a solemn visit and prepare yourself, little 
 rogue (to CARMEN). 
 
 CAR. I? 
 
 JUAN. Silence, he is asleep. 
 
 TIM. Good, good. Ah ! it is late. Good-bye.
 
 62 THE SON OF DON JUAN. 
 
 DOL. Good-bye, my daughter. 
 
 All have spoken in low voices. 
 
 [Exeunt CARMEN and TIMOTEO. 
 
 DOL. (approaching JAVIER.) Did he work long ? 
 
 JAV. A short time, but with great ardour. A great 
 effort of intellect. 
 
 JUAN (approaching also and contemplating LAZA- 
 RUS). Lord, to think of what this boy is going to be! 
 The face foretells it. The aureola of talent ! 
 
 DOL. He is very pale very pale. 
 
 JUAN. What would you have him to be ? Fat as a 
 German, and red as a beetroot ? Then he would not 
 be a genius. 
 
 DOL. However such pallor ! 
 
 JUAN and DOLORES are bent over LAZARUS contem- 
 plating him with affectionate care. 
 
 JUAN. I am decidedly the father of a genius, and 
 then (to JAVIER) they come to me with 
 
 JAV. With what? 
 
 JUAN. With nothing. (Aside.} With moral ser- 
 mons, and with the law of heredity, and with all that 
 stale trash. The father a hare-brained fellow, and 
 the son a wise man. 
 
 DOL. But has nothing been amiss with him? Was 
 it nothing more than fatigue ? 
 
 JAV. Nothing more. You may withdraw : I shall 
 stay until he awakes. 
 
 JUAN. I shall not withdraw. I was wanting 
 nothing better. I shall sit down here (sitting at the 
 other side of the table), and from here I shall watch 
 the sleep of Lazarus. You remain on foot, in honour 
 of the genius. Keep away, keep away from before 
 him, that you may not prevent me from seeing my 
 son.
 
 THE SON OF DON JUAN. 63 
 
 DOL. Yet the sleep is not very restful. 
 
 JUAN. How should it be restful, woman, since he 
 must be busied with great matters in his dreams ? 
 
 DOL. My Lazarus. 
 
 JAV. (aside.} Poor Lazarus. 
 
 JUAN (laughing quietly). Don Juan Tenorio 
 watching the sleep of the son of Don Juan ! silence 
 silence let's see if we shall hear anything from the 
 son of Don Juan. ( With pride and tenderness.) 
 
 " SE vT 
 
 END OF ACT I
 
 ACT II. 
 
 Same appointments as in first Act. It is day. On 
 the little table are flowers. DON JUAN discovered 
 seated close to the tea-table. LAZARUS also dis- 
 covered. He sometime walks about; again he 
 sits down : he tries to write, he throws away the< 
 pen. He opens a book and reads for a few* 
 moments, closes it irritably and resumes his 
 walking about. It is evident that he is uneasy 
 and nervous. All this in the course of the scene 
 with his father. DON JUAN follows him with 
 his eyes and smokes a puro. 
 
 JUAN. What are you thinking of? Ah ! pardon ! I 
 must not disturb you. 
 
 LAZ. You don't disturb me, father. I was thinking 
 of nothing important. My imagination was wander- 
 ing, and I was wandering after it. 
 
 JUAN. If you wish to work to write to read and 
 I trouble you I shall go. Ha, I shall go. (Rising.) 
 Do you want me to go ? for here I am going. 
 
 LAZ. No, father, good gracious ! You disturb me ! 
 
 JUAN (siting down again). The fact is, as you see, 
 that which I do can be done anywhere. It is in 
 substance nothing. Well, for the performance of 
 nothing any point of space is good. (Laughing.) Of 
 space ! There are your philosophical offshoots taking 
 6 4
 
 THE SON OF DON JUAN. 65 
 
 root in me. The father in space, the son in the fifth 
 heaven. That's why I say if I disturb 
 
 LAZ. No, father, don't go away ; and let us talk of 
 what you please. 
 
 JUAN. Much good you'd get by talking with me. 
 To your great books, to your papers, to those things 
 which astound by their greatness and are admired 
 for their beauty I Continue continue ! I shall see 
 you at work. I, too, shall busy myself with some- 
 thing. (Pulls the bell.) 
 
 LAZ. As you like. [Sits down and writes fitfully. 
 Enter TERESA. 
 
 JUAN. Little Teresa (looking at his son and cor- 
 recting himself. ) Teresa, bring me a glass of sherry 
 and a few biscuits ; I also have to busy myself with 
 something. And bring me the French newspapers ; 
 no, nothing but Figaro and Gil Bias. (To his son.) 
 And so we shall both be at work. (To TERESA.) 
 Listen by the way, bring me that novel which is 
 in my room. You can read, can't you ? 
 
 TER. Yes, senor. 
 
 JUAN. Well, then, a book which says Nana you 
 understand ? 
 
 TER. Yes, senor. Nd-nd. For no is na". 
 
 JUAN. It is something, little girl, (aside) something 
 that you will be in time. [Exit TERESA. 
 
 LAZ. (Rises and walks about aside). I have no 
 ideas. To-day I have no ideas. Yes, I have many ; 
 but they come like a flight of birds ; they flutter about 
 and they go. 
 
 JUAN. See now I cannot bear immoral novels. 
 
 LAZ. You said . . . ? 
 
 JUAN. Nothing ! I thought that you said something. 
 I said that I cannot endure immoral novels. (Assum-
 
 66 THE SON OF DON JUAN. 
 
 ing airs of austerity?) I read them, I read " Nana," out 
 of curiosity, as a study, but I can't bear them. Lite- 
 rature is in a lost condition, my son, in a lost condition. 
 Nemesio lent me that book and I am anxious to have 
 done with it. 
 
 LAZ. Zola is a great writer. (Aside.) This is the 
 very thing that I was looking for. (He sits and writes.) 
 
 Enter TERESA with a tray, a bottle of sherry, a 
 glass and the biscuits, " Nana " and the two 
 newspapers. 
 
 TER. Here is everything. The sherry : the news- 
 papers just come, the tender little biscuits, and the 
 tender little Nana (baby) as well. (She stands looking 
 at the two gentlemen.) 
 
 JUAN. Bring the sherry closer, Teresa. Work, boy, 
 work. Take no notice of me. Work, for it is thus 
 that men attain success. I also in my youth have 
 worked much. That's the reason I look so old. 
 (Staring at TERESA who laughs.) (Aside.) What's 
 that stupid girl laughing at? (To TERESA.) Now, 
 you may go. I don't want you. The Gil Bias! 
 (Unfolds it and begins to read it.) Let us have a look 
 at these wretched little newspapers. . . . (affecting 
 contempt.) I told you to go. (To TERESA.) Let's 
 see, let's see. (Reads.) 
 
 TER. Yes, senor. (She remains for a while looking 
 at the two, and turns towards the door in the back 
 centre.) 
 
 LAZ. (rising). Teresa 
 
 TER. Senorito 
 
 LAZ. Come here and speak lower : let us not dis- 
 turb your master, who is reading. Did you take the 
 letter which I gave you this morning? 
 
 TER. Yes, senorito, I took it myself. Whatever 
 you require me to do, senorito !
 
 THE SON OF DON JUAN. 67 
 
 LAZ. Good. It was for Senor Bermudez, eh? 
 
 TER. Yes, senorito. That doctor who has such a 
 great name, who has come from Madrid for a few 
 days to cure Don Luciano Barranco the same who, 
 they say, is either mad or not mad. (Laughing!) 
 
 LAZ. (starting, then restraining himself]. Ah ! 
 Yes. Quite so ; the same. And did you see him ? 
 Did you hand him the letter? Did he give you the 
 answer ? Where is it ? Come, quick ! 
 
 TER. Eh, senorito 
 
 LAZ. Come 
 
 TER. I gave the letter : he was not in : they 
 said 
 
 LAZ. Lower (Looking at his father who laughs 
 while reading the newspaper.} 
 
 TER. They said that as soon as he came back they 
 would give him the letter. Have no fear, senorito. 
 Whatever little I take charge of ! Well, if I do nothing 
 worse than 
 
 LAZ. It's well thanks. (Dismissing her, then re- 
 calling her.} Oh ! if they bring the answer here on 
 the instant eh ? 
 
 TER. On the instant : I should think so ! have no 
 fear, senorito. 
 
 LAZ. Enough ! let us not trouble my father. 
 
 [Exit TERESA. 
 
 JUAN. Ha ! ha ! ha ! Facetious, very facetious ! 
 sprightly, very sprightly ! Pungent as a capsicum 
 from the Rioja I It is the only newspaper that one 
 can read ! 
 
 LAZ. Some interesting article ? What is it ? What 
 does it say ? Let me see ! (Approaching and stretch- 
 ing out his hand.) 
 
 JUAN (keeping back the newspaper}. A very shame- 
 less little article and quite without point. It must
 
 68 THE SON OF DON JUAN. 
 
 be put away. (Puts it in a pocket of his dressing- 
 gown, but in such a way that it may be seen.} May 
 the devil not so contrive things that Carmen may 
 come and find the newspaper and read it in all inno- 
 cence. 
 
 LAZ. (withdrawing). It is true : you do well ! 
 Walks about nervously.) 
 
 JUAN (aside). And I had not finished reading it : 
 I shall read it afterwards. (Takes up "Nana.") This 
 also is good. The spring with all its verdure. (Aloud.) 
 Work, boy, work ! 
 
 I LAZ. (aside). I shall speak to the Doctor this very 
 day, that he may set my mind at ease. I know that 
 nothing is the matter with me ; but I want a specialist 
 L to assure me on the point. And then, with mind 
 at peace to my drama, to my critico-historical work, 
 to my aesthetic theories which are new, completely 
 new and to Carmen. And with the muse at one 
 side, recounting marvels in my ear, and with Carmen 
 on the other side, pressed against my heart to enjoy 
 life, to inhale the odour of triumphs, to live for love, 
 to satiate my longings amidst eternal mysteries. 
 
 JUAN. Stupendous ! Monumental ! Sufficient to 
 make one die of laughing. Lord, why does a man 
 read ? To be amused ; then books that are amusing 
 for me ! (Laughing.) 
 
 LAZ. Is that a nice book ? 
 
 JUAN (changing his tone). Pshaw yes pretty 
 well. But these frivolous things are tiresome after 
 all. (Sees LAZARUS coming towards him, and puts 
 " Nana " into the other pocket of the dressing-gown?) 
 Have you anything solid to read really substan- 
 tial ? 
 
 LAZ. I have many large books. "What class do you 
 want?
 
 THE SON OF DON JUAN. 69 
 
 JUAN. Something serious ; something that instructs 
 you, that makes you think. 
 
 LAZ. (going to the bookcase). Would you like 
 something of Kant ? 
 
 JUAN. Of Kant ? Do you say of Kant ? Quite so ! 
 he was my favourite author. When I was young I ~* 
 went to sleep every night reading Kant. (Aside.) C ' 
 What will that be? It sounds like a dog. 
 
 LAZ. (searching out a passage). If you like, I shall 
 tell you. 
 
 JUAN. No, my lad ; any part whatever ! (Taking 
 the book.) Yes, this may be read at any part. You 
 shall see. And don't concern yourself with me ; write, 
 my son, write. 
 
 LAZARUS sits and attempts to write. DON JUAN 
 reads. 
 
 " Under the aspect of relationship, the third con- 
 sequence of taste, the beautiful appears to us as the 
 final form of an object, without representation of 
 end." The devil ! (holding the book far off", as long- 
 sighted people do and contemplating it with terror.) 
 The devil ! " or as a finality without end." Whoever 
 can understand this ? " Because what is called final 
 form is the causality of any conception whatever with 
 relation to the object." Let me see let me see. 
 (Holding the book still further off.) " Final form the 
 causality." I believe I am perspiring. (Wipes his " ^H^ 
 forehead.) " The consciousness of this finality without 
 end is the play of the cognitive forces." How does 
 he say that? "The play of the forces the play." 
 Well, I ought to understand this about play. " The 
 consciousness of this internal causality is that which 
 constitutes the aesthetic pleasure." If I go on it will 
 give me a congestion. Jesus, Mary and Joseph !
 
 70 THE SON OF DON JUAN. 
 
 And to think that Lazarus understands about the 
 finality without end, the causality and the play of the 
 cognitive forces! God help me! What a boy! 
 {continues reading.} " The principle of the formal 
 convenience of nature is the transcendental principle 
 of the force of Judgment." (Giving a blow on the 
 table} I shall be lost if I continue reading. But if 
 that boy reads these things he will go mad. 
 
 LAZ. Does it interest you ? 
 
 JUAN. Very much ! What depth ! [(Aside./ For 
 five minutes I have been falling, and I Iiave not 
 reached the bottom. (Aloud.} I should think it does 
 interest me ! But, frankly, I prefer 
 
 LAZ. Hegel? /' 
 
 JUAN. Exactly; (Aside)* "Nana."' But you, my son, 
 neither read, nor write : you are fretful. What's the 
 matter with you ? Did the hunting tire you ? Yet 
 the exercise of the chase is very healthy for one who 
 like you wears himself away over his books. Are you 
 ill? 
 
 LAZ. No, sefior, I am not ill. And I spent these 
 three days in the country very pleasantly. But this 
 morning broke dull and rainy, and I said " Home ! " 
 
 JUAN. And you arrived when I was getting up. 
 I told you the great news ; immediately you showed 
 great delight ; but then you fell into sublime pre- 
 occupations. Poor Carmen ! (approaching him with 
 an air of secrecy} You don't love her as she loves 
 you. 
 
 LAZ. With all my soul ! More than you can 
 imagine ! I am as I am : reserved, untamed, un- 
 polished but I know how to love ! 
 
 JUAN. Better and better ! The poor little thing- 
 come, now the poor little thing. 
 
 LAZ. And why did not Don Timoteo answer on
 
 THE SON OF DON JUAN. 71 
 
 the spot that he accepted ? When you asked him for 
 his daughter for me, why did he hesitate ? 
 
 JUAN. What do you mean by hesitation ? I do him 
 the honour of requesting the hand of Carmen for my 
 Lazarus and he would hesitate ! I should strangle 
 the scarecrow. Marry a man like you ! What more 
 could any daughter or any father desire ? 
 
 LAZ. Then why did he put off the answer till 
 to-day ? 
 
 JUAN. The prescriptions of etiquette : social con- 
 ventionalities : he was always a great stickler for 
 etiquette. Because he must consult with Carmen. 
 Imagine him consulting with Carmen ! When the 
 poor little thing is like a soul in purgatory, and you 
 are her heaven. Ha ! ha ! 
 
 LAZ. You are right. 
 
 JUAN. No : you shall have your sweet little wife, 
 your home ; you shall work hard, you shall gain great 
 glory, you shall keep a sound judgment and let the 
 whole world say : Don Lazarus Mejia, son of Don 
 Juan Mejia ! Oh ! 
 
 LAZ. Yes, senor : I shall do what I can and I 
 shall love my Carmen dearly. 
 
 JUAN. That's right that's right. But something's 
 the matter with you. You seem as it were absent- 
 minded. 
 
 LAZ. I am thinking of my drama. 
 
 JUAN. Then I shall go ! decidedly I shall go ! 
 With my insipid chatter I prevent you from thinking. 
 Oh 1 thought ! the the (looking at the book) " the 
 cognitive forces" the the (looking again) "the 
 finality "that's it" the finality." Ah ! Good-bye. 
 
 LAZ. But don't go away on my account. 
 
 JUAN. We must show respect to the wise. (Laugh- 
 ing.) I am going to read all alone the great book
 
 72 THE SON OF DON JUAN. 
 
 which you have lent me. (Taking a flower and 
 putting it in the buttonhole of his dressing-gown) 
 Consider now, whether I shall hesitate between 
 Kant and " Nana." (Pulls the bell.} 
 
 LAZ. As you please. 
 
 JUAN. Good-bye, my son. To your drama to 
 your drama and put nothing immoral in it. 
 
 Enter TERESA. 
 
 TER. Senor. 
 
 JUAN. Listen, Teresa : take all that to my room. 
 Wait (Pours himself out a glass. Touching one pocket.} 
 Here is Gil Bias, (touching) here is "Nana": Kant 
 hauled along by the neck and to my room. Work, 
 my boy, work ! Do something great. Leave some- 
 thing to the world. I shall leave you I think 
 (drinking the glass of wine.} Well, this finality has 
 an end. To work to work ? Good-bye. Lord, 
 what a Lazarus this is ! To my room with all that, 
 little Teresa. 
 
 [Exit carrying in one pocket Gil Bias, in the other 
 "Nana," in his buttonhole the flower, and 
 gripped very hard the "volume of Kant. 
 
 LAZ. Teresa, they have brought no letter for me ? 
 
 TER. (preparing to remove the wine and the biscuits), 
 No, senor. 
 
 LAZ. Patience : you did not tell my mother I had 
 written to that Senor de Bermudez. 
 
 TER. No, senor. 
 
 LAZ. Has my mother got up ? 
 
 TER. Got up, indeed ! Before you returned this 
 morning from hunting, Dona Dolores had already gone 
 to call for the Senorita Carmen that they might go to 
 Mass together. 
 
 LAI. Good.
 
 THE SON OF DON JUAN. 73 
 
 TER. And I don't know how she rose so early, nor 
 how she found courage to go out. 
 
 LAZ. Why? 
 
 TER. Because last night she was very ill : very ill 
 indeed. 
 
 LAZ. (starting up). My mother ! 
 
 TER. Yes, senor. I say that it must have been the 
 nerves. How she cried : how she twisted her arms ! 
 Indeed I wanted to send an express messenger for 
 you to come back at once. 
 
 LAZ. Ah ! my God, my poor mother ! and why was 
 I not informed ? I would have mounted on horse- 
 back ; and in one hour here. 
 
 TER. Because the senora would not have it so. 
 " Silence, not a word to anybody," so she said, and 
 an order from her is an order. 
 
 LAZ. But how is it possible? My father said 
 nothing to me ! 
 
 TER. He was not informed : he went to the theatre, 
 afterwards to the Casino with Don Timoteo and Don 
 Nemesio; he returned late, and as the senora had 
 given orders " to nobody " nothing was said to him ; 
 and he knew nothing. 
 
 LAZ. But how was it ? Why was it ? She who is 
 never ill ! 
 
 TER. I don't know. The senora dined early and 
 alone. Afterwards she went out. She came back at 
 ten o'clock : she could scarcely enter her room, and 
 immediately fell to the ground just like a tower that 
 falls. 
 
 LAZ. My God I my God ! And you never informed 
 me ! 
 
 TER. Well, I am informing you now. And in spite of 
 what she said, " not a word." But as to you for your 
 sake! Oh ! when it concerns you, senorito. (LAZARUS 
 4
 
 74 THE SON OF DON JUAN. 
 
 pays no attention to her.) But don't be distressed : 
 this morning already she was so strong and so well : 
 yes, really, very pale and with such dark circles round 
 the eyes ! but so strong. We women are thus : now 
 we are dying and afterwards we revive : we go back 
 to death and again we return to life. 
 
 LAZ. You mean that now she is well ? But entirely 
 well? 
 
 TER. Don't I tell you she is as well as could be ? 
 Let your mind rest, senorito. 
 
 LAZARUS, very much agitated, has been "walking 
 about. 
 
 LAZ. Good, good, if it has already passed off in 
 short, when my mother returns, tell me. 
 
 TER. You have no other orders ? 
 
 LAZ. No. (A bell rings several times.) My father 
 is calling : go, go quickly. The vibrating of the bell 
 makes me nervous. 
 
 TER. I must take away this. (Takes up the trays.) 
 
 LAZ. (the bell continues ringing). Take it away 
 quickly for pity's sake. 
 
 TER. On the instant ; what a hurry that good 
 gentleman is in ! 
 
 LAZ. And if they bring the answer from Senor de 
 Bermudez. 
 
 TER. Immediately afterwards. (The bell con- 
 tinues.) I am coming, I am coming. (She says this 
 without calling aloud, as if to herself.) 
 
 [Exit TERESA. 
 
 LAZ. (alone). What she has told me about my 
 poor mother- has unstrung all my nerves. I am not 
 well. Bah ! I am not ill. How Doctor Bermudez 
 will laugh at me when I consult him. The fact is 
 that I am very apprehensive ; but I feel strong : Javier
 
 THE SON OF DON JUAN. S 75 
 
 says to me every moment : "My boy, don't strut 
 about on your heels so much." Steady ; so, steady. 
 (He walks about, treads with his heels and laughs.} 
 I know now what's the matter. I am very happy and 
 I have a horrible dread of losing so much happiness. 
 Very happy. (Counting on his fingers?) My father 
 and mother, so good ; Carmen, who adores me ; I, 
 who am raving about her ; glory, which calls me ; 
 I who answer, " Forward, Lazarus '' ; my eyes, which 
 are my own and are never satiated with drinking in 
 light and colours ; my thought, which is mine, and 
 which does not tire of originating wonders ; my life, 
 which is mine, and which desire^ to live more, to live 
 more yes, more ! (A pause^/T They say that life is 
 dull, that it is mournful. Buffoons ! Has anything 
 better been discovered ?/ Is it better to be stone 
 which has no nerves to quiver with delight ? Is it 
 better to be water which always runs in headlong 
 stupidity without knowing where it goes ? Is it better 
 to be air to blow without motive and to fill itself with 
 the foulest earth and dust? No, it is better to be 
 Lazarus. (Resumes the counting on his fingers?) For 
 Lazarus has very good parents ; he has Carmen ; he 
 has glory ; he has life ; and he has, above all, thought, 
 reason ! Ha ! I have all this : I have it : what 
 remains to be done if I have it ! (Sits down in a 
 somewhat cowering manner?) It is evident because 
 all this is so good, and because I have it, I am afraid 
 to lose it. I am as terrified as a little child ; at times^. 
 it seems to me that I am a little child, and I am seized 
 with impulses to run to my mother and wrap myself 
 round in her skirt. A man who almost understands 
 Kant and Hegel ; who writes dramas which are very 
 well received, yes, senor, very well received ; who 
 meditates transcendental works. A man, in every
 
 76 THE SON OF DON JUAN. 
 
 sense a man, who has fought duels in Madrid, and 
 has had a little love affair or so (laughing) and 
 very pleasant too : the practical reason, not of Kant 
 but of Zola, which turns the Pure Reason of Kant into 
 ridicule and makes even the good matron laugh. 
 Well then, this formidable Lazarus at times is a child, 
 and he would like his mother to embrace him and to 
 buy him toys ! To be a child, yes ; all the same 
 it is good to be a child. Nay. I should like it. 
 (Laughing!) But what absurdities ! Lord, what 
 absurdities ! (Remains cowering in his chair \ thinking 
 and laughing very low.) 
 
 Enter TERESA. 
 
 TER. Senorito, a gentleman has given me this card. 
 
 LAZ. (as if awaking). A gentleman? Let me see 
 Doctor Bermudez ! But why has he put himself to 
 inconvenience ? I would have gone to him. Let him 
 come in. Let him come in. Quick, woman, let him 
 come in. (Exit TERESA.) With this man I must 
 have much prudence, much composure, much calm. 
 If he had heard the nonsense that I was talking ! 
 What a terror ! 
 
 TERESA, (re-entering and announcing). Sefior de 
 Bermudez. [Exit TERESA. 
 
 Enter BERMUDEZ. 
 
 BERM. Senor Don Lazarus Mejia ? 
 
 LAZ. Your servant very much your servant one 
 who is grieved to the heart for having troubled a 
 person such as you. A man of eminence a man of 
 knowledge. ( With much courtesy ', but endeavouring to 
 restrain himself.) 
 
 BERM. Not so not so I received your letter. 
 
 LAZ. Indeed, it was not meant that you should give 
 yourself any trouble. I begged you to be good
 
 THE SON OF DON JUAN. 77 
 
 enough to appoint a time for me and I should have 
 gone to your house. But take a seat. I cannot allow 
 you to remain standing an instant longer. Sit down ! 
 (Making him sit down.} Here no here you will 
 be better here. 
 
 BERM. Many thanks. You are very amiable ! 
 ( Takes a seat.} 
 
 LAZ. I don't know whether I am entitled to sit 
 down in the presence of a man like yourself; a 
 national glory ! (Commands himself so that his accent 
 is natural : perhaps however he errs a little by excess 
 of courtesy.) 
 
 BERM. For goodness' sake ! 
 
 LAZ. A man of European fame ! 
 
 yL__B_ERM. You overwhelm me. I don't deserve 
 [^AsidelJ He is very engaging, this young man. They 
 were right in Madrid to say that he has plenty of 
 ability. 
 
 LAZ. You don't deserve it ? Ah ! in the mouth of 
 a celebrity like Doctor Bermudez, modesty will always 
 have a voice, but it has no vote. 
 
 BERM. Senor de Mejia. (Aside.} How well he 
 speaks ! 
 
 LAZ. Don't treat me ceremoniously. I am not 
 deserving of so much solemnity. " Senor de Mejia" ! 
 (Laughing.} Call me Lazarus. I really don't 
 deserve anything better; treat me as a master 
 might a pupil. I dare not say as a kind friend 
 would treat a respectful friend. 
 
 BERM. As you please. It will be an honour for me ! 
 (Aside.} Very engaging, very engaging ! 
 
 LAZ. Well, I repeat that I am sorry at heart for 
 having given you this trouble. 
 
 BERM. Not at all. ^already told your mother last 
 night that if at any other time she required me, or if
 
 78 THE SON OF DON JUAN. 
 
 she wished by any further suggestions to make me 
 amplify my opinion, I was unconditionally at her 
 orders. A card saying to me " Come," and I should 
 come instantly. And so it is that on receiving the 
 letter this morning as you may imagine I said, " I 
 must place myself at the feet of that lady, and I must 
 personally become acquainted with her son, a national 
 glory of the future, one who is destined to have a 
 European renown." 
 
 LAZ. Senor de Bermudez ! (Repudiating the 
 honour with a gesture. Aside.) My mother last 
 night what does he say ? (Commanding himself, 
 then aloud.) So my mother went last night to see 
 you because 
 
 BERM. Yes, senor, she has already explained every- 
 thing to me. That you were out hunting, and that 
 you did not mean to return this week ; that she had 
 been informed that I was going back to Madrid this 
 day, and that she had been anxious to consult me 
 without the loss of a moment concerning the illness of 
 that poor young man a cousin or a nephew, or a 
 relative I think he is a nephew of your mother, 
 whose name she said was Don Luis Don 
 Luis 
 
 LAZ. Quite so a nephew. You have it. (Smiling. 
 Then aside.) What's this ? What relative is that ? 
 Why, it is not true. God of Heaven ! (Aloud.) A 
 nephew that's it. To whom God does not give sons, 
 
 the devil, (Laughing.) Yes, but she also has me 
 
 her Lazarus, her son ! 
 
 BERM. And she must be proud. 
 
 LAZ. Senor de Bermudez, have compassion on a 
 beginner. But I wish you to explain to me what you 
 had the kindness to explain to my mother ; because 
 ladles don't understand much about medical science
 
 THE SON OF DON JUAN. 79 
 
 and though I understand just as little of it, never- 
 theless 
 
 BERM. Quite so ; it is a speciality. 
 
 LAZ. A speciality, that's it ; it is a speciality. And 
 moreover, I know that young man more intimately 
 poor Luis ! And I can supply you with fresh 
 particulars. 
 
 BERM. Oh ! those of your mother were very precise. 
 She has a keenly observant mind. 
 
 LAZ. Very much so ; don't you describe it well ! A 
 keenly observant mind. (Aside.) My God! my 
 mother and on her return home her weeping 
 what does this man say ? 
 
 BERM. Altogether it would be better that I should 
 see the poor young man ; but should that not be 
 possible 
 
 LAZ. I should think it is possible, and that would 
 be the best. You shall see him. I myself will take 
 him to you to your house. Yes, sefior, to your 
 house ; yes, senor. 
 
 BERM. That will do perfectly. That was what 
 I said to your mother, but she told me in reply that so 
 long as things don't come to an extremity, families 
 require to consider. I understand and I impute no 
 blame. 
 
 LAZ. Nothing of the kind. Now, at this very 
 moment you shall come with me to see that that 
 poor young man. A man like you ! Why, there's no 
 difficulty about it. 
 
 BERM. (rising). Then I await your orders. 
 
 LAZ. Allow me, my friend, my dear friend : first of 
 all I should like I beg of you to tell me what my 
 mother explained to you, and what was your opinion ; 
 because, although she related everything to me this 
 morning, I should be glad to hear it from your lips.
 
 8o THE SON OF DON JUAN. 
 
 One learns everything by listening to such a man as 
 Doctor Bermudez. (In a persuasive tone.} I am so 
 anxious that you should speak, and that I should hear 
 you. Indeed, it has been the dream of my existence. 
 Speak, speak. 
 
 BERM. Dear Lazarus. (Aside.} I have fascinated 
 
 him, decidedly. (Aloud.} Your mother explained to 
 
 me with great lucidity all the antecedents of the 
 
 I patient : his sufferings when a child, his character, his 
 
 ! studies, his excitable imagination, the first symptoms 
 
 l of the illness, a fainting attack, another more violent. 
 
 LAZ. (somewhat drily]. All that I know already. 
 Go on. ( With extreme cordiality?) Go on, my dear 
 Bermudez. 
 
 BERM. The doctor is rather like a confessor, and 
 your mother did not object to letting me know of the 
 youthful days of the father of the father of the young 
 man. 
 
 LAZ. Ah ! his youthful days yes his youthful 
 days yes yes and what else ? 
 
 BERM. His vicious conduct ; his unbridled liber- 
 tinism 
 
 LAZ. (excitedly). Libertinism ! (Controlling him- 
 self?) Yes. (With a forced laugh?) Follies of youth. 
 A lady always exaggerates these things. I have not 
 been a saint myself; neither have you. Doctor, 
 doctor, you with all your science and all your 
 gravity. God knows. God knows ! Oh ! these 
 doctors ! (Giving him a slap on the back?) And 
 what more ? 
 
 BERM. (laughing). We are mortals and sinners, 
 friend Lazarus. 
 
 LAZ. And we take for fine gold little lenses of talc. 
 Come, come to the talc. 
 
 BERM. Thus stands the case that that good
 
 THE SON OF DON JUAN. 81 
 
 gentleman, the father of the patient, reached the age 
 of gravity, and he was not a steady man, and he did 
 not correct his faults. His wife seems to have suffered 
 very much. Is all this exact which your mother told 
 me? Because if it is exact it must be taken into 
 account. That's the reason I ask. 
 
 LAZ. (aside). My head ! Oh my head ! (Succeeds 
 in commanding himself, and speaks naturally. 
 Aloud.) See, doctor, those are details of which 
 I know nothing. But if my mother told you so, it 
 will be true. My mother is a superior spirit, a most 
 pure soul, a mother beyond comparison. But let us 
 not speak of the mother, only of the son, that's to say 
 of the son of the other mother. Therefore let's see, 
 let's see. What more did she tell you ? 
 
 BERM. That to prevent the son from becoming 
 fully acquainted with the disorders of the father 1 
 because the boy, naturally, was growing up, the 
 mother had to send him to a college in France. ) 
 
 LAZ. (astde). It is I. It is I ! Ah ! ah ! Calm ! 
 let me be calm ! 
 
 BERM. What do you say ? 
 
 LAZ. Nothing. I laugh at those family tragedies 
 
 the father a madcap, and the son, And as you 
 
 fill me with such respect and as the subject is so sad 
 I should not have presumed to laugh. Ah ! Senor 
 de Bermudez, what a world this is ! what a world 
 this is ! Come, come. (Growing calm.) Yes, senor, 
 the history, so far as I know, is entirely correct. 
 Then they sent him to study in Madrid that un~) 
 fortunate, unfortunate youth : but, look you, not so 
 unfortunate for he went through his course with 
 distinction. 
 
 BERM. Quite so, and the father remained always 
 the same.
 
 82 THE SON OF DON JUAN. 
 
 LAZ. (somewhat harshly). Let us not speak of the 
 father. And why ? Because the son is now launched 
 on the world ; then let us leave out of the question the 
 other. (Recollecting himself?) Ah ! pardon me. I 
 love my father so much, I respect him so much, that 
 those words which you uttered have caused me much 
 pain, much pain. A weakness I confess ; a man of 
 science does not know those weaknesses; but we 
 poets are thus . You you raise yourselves above the 
 level of human miseries. The eagle soars alike eh ? 
 above the peak of granite with its robe of frost eh ? 
 and over the infected puddle or the mire the mire 
 eh ? But we are not all as Doctor Bermudez ? 
 (Grasping his hand.) 
 
 BERM. I respect your delicacy: but science is 
 implacable. A father who has consumed his life in 
 vice 
 
 LAZARUS retreats in his chair. 
 
 Who has wallowed with all the energies of his nature 
 in the mire of riot, who has heated his blood in the 
 embers of all impure fires runs the danger of trans- 
 mitting to his son nothing but the germs of death or 
 the germs of madness ! 
 
 LAZARUS recoils more and more. 
 And I tell you, as I told your mother last night, with- 
 out prejudice to the rectification of my opinion when 
 I have examined the patient, that if the description 
 which you have given me is exact and I conclude 
 that it is 
 
 LAZ. It is. What then ? 
 
 BERM. Ah ! the springs of life cannot be corrupted 
 with impunity. The Son of that father will very soon 
 sink into madness or into idiocy. A madman or an 
 idiot : such is his fate!
 
 THE SON OF DON JUAN. 83 
 
 (He says this without looking round, with solemnity, 
 like one who pronounces a sentence : gazing for- 
 ward and motioning with his arm towards 
 LAZARUS. The latter cowers in his chair and 
 looks at BERMUDEZ with horror.) 
 LAZ. Ah ! No ! What ? My father ! I ! A lie ! 
 A lie ! It is a lie ! (Hides his face in his hands.) 
 
 BERM. What's this ? Lazarus ! Senor de Mejia ! 
 Are you ill? What do you say? (Rising and 
 approaching LAZARUS.) I don't understand ! Can it 
 be? What? 
 
 LAZ. That I am the madman ? Silence ! That I 
 am the idiot ? Silence ! That I am such I ? Look 
 at me well : study me well : strengthen your judg- I 
 ment : meditate, examine, give sentence ! 
 
 BERMUDEZ standing, LAZARUS seated and clutching 
 the doctor by the arm. 
 
 BERM. But this is not fair, Senor de Mejia ! This 
 is not just ! By God by the Holy God ! 
 
 LAZ. Fairness, justice, in a man such as I ? Ber- 
 mudez, Bermudez, I did wrong, I confess (with a 
 mixture of courtesy, sadness, and some sarcasm) An 
 idiot who presents his most humble excuses to a wise 
 man ! Be generous, pardon me. 
 
 BERM. You have not understood me. I am sorry 
 for you, Lazarus, because I have given you a shock 
 a bad time of it, without cause believe me, 
 without any cause. God help me, these dramatic 
 authors no, one is not safe with them ! (Wishing to 
 turn the matter off" with a laugh.) 
 
 LAZ. Let us be calm, let us be calm. I want the 
 truth ; there still remains to me some glimmer of reason, 
 and I can understand what you say to me. Ha ! the 
 truth Bermudez, the truth ! It is the last truth that
 
 84 THE SON OF DON JUAN. 
 
 I can understand, and I wish to enjoy it. (Rising.} 
 Out with it ! I still understand yes still ! 
 
 BERM. Friend Lazarus ! By all the saints of the 
 heavenly court ! 
 
 LAZ. No, I still keep my senses ; I shall explain to 
 you all that has passed. _My mother, pretending to 
 inquire about another, inquired about me ; I, pre- 
 tending to be interested on another's account, was 
 interested on my own, and a poor mother and a lost 
 ^wretch have between them cajoled a wise man. Ah ! 
 cajoled no : pardon. We wished to know the truth- 
 nothing more ; but as the truth is treacherous, it is 
 necessary at times to drag it forth by treason. I 
 humbly beg that you will pardon us my mother 
 and myself. 
 
 BERM. I tell you that I cannot recover from my 
 surprise ; that I am cut to the heart for having spoken 
 with such levity. I have already told you that my 
 opinion was haphazard quite haphazard without 
 examination of the patient. (Seeking where to go.) 
 
 LAZ. Well, .here is the patient. Don't I tell you 
 that I am the man ? Oh, have no fear : I am a man 
 capable of looking face to face upon death, and of 
 answering the grimace of madness with another 
 grimace even more grotesque. While a heart 
 remains to me, the head will obey. 
 
 BERM. For God's sake, calm yourself. All this is 
 not serious. 
 
 LAZ. I am perfectly calm; I am still master of 
 myself. Sit down. (Makes him take a seat.) Let us 
 talk quietly. Tell me all, but in a low voice, that my 
 mother may not know ; that she may not know. And 
 of my father, not a word! Of my father no, enough 
 nothing ! I have been a madmanjn Madrid^ so that 
 the madness is mine. It is all mine ! Oh ! you deny
 
 THE SON OF DON JUAN. 
 
 that it is all mine ? That is not right, Senor de Ber- 
 mudez. Take to yourself the accusation that it is not 
 right. You deny me my own reason, and you even 
 wish to deprive me of my own madness, saying 
 saying that my father silence I Well, my reason 
 may not belong to me : patience ! But my madness 
 belongs to me ; I swear to you that it belongs to me, 
 and I shall defend it l^shall defendjt, Bermudez ! 
 (Advances upon the physician. Then restrains him- 
 self.} And now, let us talk soberly of myself of my 
 suffering. 
 
 BERM. Senor de Mejia, dear Lazarus as for what I 
 told you a while since, it was purely hypothetical ; 
 now that I know you, I modify my opinion in every 
 point. 
 
 LAZ. (with a mocking smile). Indeed? By God, 
 Senor de Bermudez, that I am a madman we'll let 
 pass ; but I am not yet an idiot. 
 
 BERM. By God, Senor de Mejia, I am sure that I 
 shall go out of this house either an idiot or a mad- 
 man ! 
 
 LAZ. When do you calculate that I shall suffer 
 the decisive attack the last : that of eternal night ; 
 that which surrounds us with blackness for ever? 
 How easily it is known that I have been a poet, eh ? 
 Eternal night, eternal blackness ! Is it not true ? 
 However, say when ? What term do you allow me ? 
 A year ? three months ? or is it immediately ? Can- 
 didly. You see, now, that I still hear, and under- 
 stand, and even speak poetically. Eternal blackness, 
 eternal night ! However, let me know let me know. 
 A year, eh ? 
 
 BERM. It is readily perceived that you are a poet. 
 You plunge into the regions of phantasy. You see, 
 your nervous system is shaken, somewhat shaken. I
 
 86 THE SON OF DON JUAN. 
 
 don't deny it ; but I make myself responsible for your 
 cure ; do you want more ? 
 
 LAZ. We are coming to the point. As for my cure, 
 I am ready to believe that. But the decisive attack 
 when ? I have such a feeling these few days past, 
 that I think it will be very soon. 
 
 BERM. Ravings, ravings ! these are ravings. 
 
 LAZ. Precisely. Ah ! you have said it ravings. 
 Come, an effort. Will it be to-morrow, will it be 
 to-day ? 
 
 I BERM. Neither to-day, nor to-morrow, nor within 
 twenty years, if you keep your senses. 
 
 LAZ. If I keep my senses ! You are ingenious. 
 " I shall not lose my senses if I keep my senses." 
 Naturally. 
 
 BERM. A good sign : now we are joking. 
 
 LAZ. Yes, I am very quiet. At first I felt a wave 
 of blood roll through my brain ; then a wave of ice, 
 which spread through all my being. And now well 
 quiet tired, a little tired, nothing more. 
 
 BERM. Good ; then take a rest, put your mind at 
 ease ; and before my setting out for Madrid I shall 
 return. I have to convince you 
 
 LAZ. I am convinced ! Oh, my God ! I don't 
 wish to keep you any longer, I have sufficiently 
 abused your kindness. 
 
 BERM. (making a movement to withdraw). Then if 
 you will permit me 
 
 LAZ. Yes, senor, assuredly (accompanying him}. 
 And don't have any ill-will towards me. 
 
 BERM. Good God no ; however, my friend 
 
 LAZ. (detaining hitri). One moment ! (In his ear.) 
 When? 
 
 BERM. Some other time. 
 
 LAZ. No ; the one thing that I wish you to tell me,
 
 THE SON OF DON JUAN. 87 
 
 is this : " Lazarus, there is no hope ; the attack will 
 be next month, or next week, or to-morrow, or to-night, 
 or this very hour," in short, when must it be ? This 
 is the only thing you have to tell me : I ask no 
 more. 
 
 BERM. But how can you have me knowingly utter 
 nonsense ? 
 
 LAZ. (energetically). Because you have the inevi- 
 table power of telling me the truth ; however sharp, 
 however bitter, however mournful, it may be, you 
 must tell it to me. It is a question of honour, of life 
 or death. Now you shall understand me. (In a low 
 voice in the doctor's ear.) I love, I adore Carmen ; 
 our wedding has been arranged : it will take place in 
 a short time within fifteen days. And now, answer 
 me : Can I, in conscience, without being guilty of 
 infamy, can I bind the existence of Carmen to my 
 existence to the existence of an idiot ? 
 
 BERM. What a question ! 
 
 LAZ. If you are a man of honour . What, go 
 
 away without answering me ? Well, the way is free 
 to you (withdrawing from him). Oh ! I'll not detain 
 you. 
 
 BERM. By God, Lazarus 
 
 LAZ. But reflect, that through the cowardice of a 
 moment, through not having spoken to me as one 
 man speaks to another man for I still am a man 
 you are about to do great mischief. Because if you 
 don't say to me, " Renounce," I shall not renounce 
 Carmen ; I shall embrace her and drag her down 
 with me to the abyss. 
 
 BERM. You see that I can do no more. 
 
 LAZ. You see that love is life the oil of life which 
 propagates itself. And what will be our posterity ? 
 Come, say it, boldly. A swarm of neurotics, of idiots,
 
 88 THE SON OF DON JUAN. 
 
 of lunatics, perhaps of criminals. A common sewer 
 hurrying on to death the wrecks of humanity. In 
 candour, in honesty, say it. 
 
 BERM. Oh ! what a head ! Indeed, if you continue 
 thus, I assure you that you will go mad. 
 
 LAZ. By the memory of your mother, by the honour 
 of your family, by the happiness of your children, by 
 the sacred duty of your profession, by your conscience 
 as an upright man, by your God, by piety, by com- 
 passion , if you had a daughter would you allow 
 
 her to marry me ? 
 
 BERM. To-day ? No ! ( Wishes to continue.) 
 
 LAZ. Enough ! nor to-morrow either. Enough 
 never thank you. My sentence ! Carmen, Carmen ! 
 (Falls on the sofa.) 
 
 BERM. Lazarus for God's sake you did not allow 
 me to finish. Lazarus ! What a creature ! Listen to 
 me. I must call. (Pulls the bell.) He is losing his 
 wits Lazarus ! (The bell.) Eh ! Here ! (going to 
 the door.) 
 
 Enter DOLORES and DON JUAN. 
 
 BERM. Senora ! 
 
 DOL. (running to him). Bermudez ! 
 
 JUAN (to BERMUDEZ). My Lazarus ! 
 
 DOL. (to BERMUDEZ). My boy ! 
 
 JUAN. But what is this ? Lord, what is this ? 
 
 LAZ. (rising). Nothing. We called they did not 
 appear. We continued to call and you have come. 
 And I called because I wished to introduce you to my 
 kind friend, Doctor Bermudez. My mother (intro- 
 ducing her) ; you already know each other. Is it not 
 true that you know each other ? 
 
 DOL. My son !
 
 THE SON OF DON JUAN. 89 
 
 She and LAZARUS embrace. 
 
 LAZ. (to BERMUDEZ). Don't be surprised. As I 
 was hunting a whole week and as we did not see 
 each other on my return we were embracing. 
 
 BERM. It's natural. 
 
 LAZ. My father (introducing him). I have already 
 seen my father this morning, that's why I don't 
 embrace him. (JUAN looks at him imploringly.) 
 However, that you may not imagine I love him less 
 than my mother, I shall embrace him likewise. 
 Father ! 
 
 JUAN. Lazarus ! (Embracing him.) Closer to me 1 
 closer ! so ! (To DOLORES, aside.) You see, 
 Dolores, you see ? He has such strength ; he has 
 nearly squeezed the breath out of me. It's all folly 
 what you have been telling me. 
 
 DOL. Yes quite true folly. 
 
 JUAN (to BERMUDEZ). What's this boy suffering 
 from ? 
 
 BERM. Nothing : in substance, nothing. 
 
 JUAN (to DOL.). Are you listening ? What a head 
 you have ! 
 
 LAZ. Make your minds easy. Delicate slightly 
 delicate. Don't be cast down, mother. 
 
 DOL. (caressing him). Lazarus, -my son, my Lazarus ! 
 
 JUAN (approaching LAZARUS with envy). And 
 must I be cast down or not ? Oh, it matters little 
 whether or not I be cast down. 
 
 LAZ. Neither must you be down-hearted, father. 
 There is no cause. I am perfectly well ; let Ber- 
 mudez tell you. And I am going to work for a while 
 (with anguish), because I can do no more (restraining 
 himself) I can do no more with this idleness, eh ? 
 And with the regimen that you have prescribed for me
 
 90 THE SON OF DON JUAN. 
 
 and by following your advice within a short time 
 you shall see the resurrection of Lazarus ! Good-bye, 
 Bermudez ; my own mother, father and sefior illus- 
 trious doctor note that phrase that phrase the 
 resurrection of Lazarus. Ah ! for this Lazarus there 
 is no resurrection. [Exit. 
 
 JUAN (to BERMUDEZ). Speak, by Christ crucified ! 
 I know that it is nothing but I wish you to speak. 
 Come, my Lazarus what ? Why does this woman 
 say such things ? Jesus, Jesus, what a woman ! You 
 have always been the same. ( To BERMUDEZ.) Don't 
 speak lightly these are very important matters. 
 However, come ! let me know, let me know ! 
 
 BERM. Sefior Don Juan, you understand 
 
 DOL. Have you changed your opinion ? 
 
 BERM. Substantially it remains unchanged. 
 
 DOL. My God ! my God ! (Throws herself sobbing 
 on a chair.) 
 
 BERM. But we must have a little calmness ; Senora, 
 for God's sake. 
 
 JUAN. Calm ? I should think so ; since what you 
 two say is impossible : then nothing else was required. 
 As if this could do no more than come down upon a 
 genius like Lazarus and all in a moment. If it were 
 I good, because I Sefior de Bermudez I may be 
 puffed off any day ; but Lazarus, Lazarus, consider 
 well what you say, for these things are very important. 
 And they must be thought over deliberately. Very 
 important very important indeed. 
 
 BERM. You are right, Don Juan. And now, you'll 
 both excuse me, I am deeply affected and I could 
 not co-ordinate two ideas. 
 
 JUAN (aside, to his wife). Are you listening ? He 
 could not co-ordinate two ideas. I say, I say, why 
 did I trust to him !
 
 THE SON OF DON JUAN. 91 
 
 BERM. Later on to-morrow some other day I 
 shall have the pleasure of paying my compliments to 
 you and of seeing Lazarus. Now, permit me to retire. 
 
 DOL. (rising and hurrying towards hint). But you 
 are not yet going back to Madrid ? No, for God's 
 sake! 
 
 BERM. No, senora. I shall remain here fifteen or 
 twenty days longer. 
 
 DOL. Then, come again ; come again, I implore 
 you ! 
 
 JUAN. Yes ; come again. 
 
 BERM. Yes, senor, I shall come again. 
 
 DOL. To-morrow ? 
 
 JUAN. If you gave a little look in to-night eh ? 
 You could take coffee with us. I have some 
 sherry 
 
 BERM. To-night I cannot. I shall come to-morrow. 
 
 DOL. To-morrow, then, Bermudez. (Accompany- 
 ing him.) Save my son ! 
 
 JUAN. See you to-morrow, Senor de Bermudez. And 
 have a care what you do with my Lazarus ! 
 
 BERM. Till to-morrow, then, Senora. (Pressing 
 her hand.) And my dear senor. 
 DOLORES falls on a chair : JUAN walks about with 
 difficulty, but with an air of great vigour. 
 
 JUAN. This man does not know what he's talking 
 about. You have now heard him ; he can't co-ordi- 
 nate two ideas. How simple we are ! What, and do 
 people lose their talents and lose their heads as one 
 might lose a hat ? Here, I got rid of my hat, and 
 thus got rid of my head ? Bah, bah / Idiots are 
 what they are from infancy. Nor do I say idiots only 
 fools have been fools all through life ; there is 
 nobody more consistent than a fool. jf But as to a man 
 of genius ! Oh ! Genius ! Tut, absurdities of doctors !
 
 92 THE SON OF DON JUAN. 
 
 X ' 
 
 He to pronounce judgment on my Lazarus ! He who 
 can't co-ordinate two ideas on Lazarus, who is as 
 familiar with the " finality without end " as he is with 
 the Our Father ! Come, answer. Am I right ? 
 
 DOL. Would to God it might be so ! 
 
 JUAN. But don't you think it is false all that that 
 buffoon has told us ? 
 
 DOL. (with desperation). And if it were true ? If it 
 were true ? What then ? Then, why was I born ? 
 (Advancing upon DON JUAN, who retreats.} My 
 illusions lost through you ! My youth blighted 
 through you ! My dignity sneered at through you ! 
 After twenty years of sacrifices in order to be deserv- 
 ing of my Lazarus good for him ! loyal for him ! 
 honourable for him ! And to-day ? No. You have 
 always been a wretch : but this time you are right. 
 Impossible ! Impossible ! God could not let it be 
 so. 
 
 JUAN. Well, I have been a wretch there's no 
 getting over it. But do not call to mind all that 
 and above all, don't speak of it. Say that you forgive 
 me forgive me, Dolores. 
 
 DOL. What does it matter to you my forgive- 
 ness? 
 
 JUAN. It matters to us both. If you don't pardon 
 me, and at the same time God purposes to chastise 
 me, and chastises me in my Lazarus *' He might 
 have been a genius, here you have in him an idiot." 
 These things are very serious. Come come, don't say 
 that. 
 
 DOL.- What things you do say ! You, too, talk at 
 random. No matter under such circumstances. I 
 pardon you with all my heart. 
 
 JUAN. Thank you, Dolores. Thus we are more 
 secure.
 
 THE SON OF DON JUAN. 93 
 
 DOL. (clinging to htm). But help me to save 
 Lazarus. 
 
 JUAN. With my whole soul. Though I had to give 
 up for him all the life that remains to me. 
 
 DOL. Give your life ! Ha ! what life have you ? All 
 the life that God first granted you, you should give him. 
 
 JUAN. Dolores! 
 
 DOL. Ah ! it's true. I had pardoned you. I shall 
 not recall my word. But what are we to do ? 
 
 JUAN. Take him to Madrid, that the best known 
 physicians may see him. 
 
 DOL. Well thought of ! 
 
 JUAN. AndjhgnjtQL^Paris. We shall consult _all 
 the eminent men. 
 
 DOL. Quite so. Then to Germany. 
 
 JUAN. And to England. The English know a 
 great deal. Bah ! there is plenty of science dispersed 
 throughout the world. 
 
 DOL. Then we shall collect it all for Lazarus. 
 
 JUAN. Without fail ! All for him ! Whatever 
 remains of my fortune for him ! 
 much, but I am still rich. 
 
 DOL. I have never called you to a reckoning. You 
 have squandered your own. 
 
 JUAN. No, senora : no, sefiora. It was not mine. 
 I see it now. It belonged to Lazarus. But Lord ! I 
 did not know I was going to have Lazarus. Dolores, 
 we must save him. 
 
 DOL. We hang on to his reason like two creatures 
 in despair, that it may not fly away. Is it not true ? 
 (Clinging to him.) 
 
 JUAN. Like two of the desperate, and like two 
 parents. Is it not so ? (Pressing her to him.) And 
 we shall save him, eh ? Don't say no ; don't say no ! 
 (Falls weeping on a sofa,) I have been bad, but with-
 
 94 THE SON OF DON JUAN. 
 
 out bad intention. I did not know this. Would that 
 I had been told ! Lazarus, my Lazarus ! 
 
 DOL. Don't be distressed. Don't you see that you 
 will not have energy to struggle ? 
 
 JUAN. I'll not have energy ? Ah ! you'll see. Ho ! 
 ho ! I have no energy ! 
 
 DOL. I love to see you thus. And believe me that 
 Bermudez exaggerates. 
 
 JUAN. He is a fanatic a buffoon a madman that 
 can't co-ordinate two ideas. Ah, blockhead. (Shaking 
 his fist.) I don't know how I keep my head. My 
 breast is burning. My throat is dry. (Pulls the bell.) 
 Teresa ! eh ! Teresa ! 
 
 DOL. (calling). Teresa ! (Turning to JUAN.) 
 What's the matter? 
 
 JUAN. Nothing nothing. 
 
 TERESA entering. 
 TER. Senor? 
 
 JUAN. Bring me a glass of sherry. No, a glass of 
 water water only. 
 ___T_ER. Yes, senor. [Exit. 
 
 JUAN (walking about). From this day I have to 
 mortify myself on bread and water, like an anchorite 
 all for Lazarus. Come, is not this to be put to my 
 credit ? 
 
 DOL. Yes ; but much prudence. Let nobody know 
 anything. 
 
 JUAN. Nothing. Our journeys will be journeys of 
 pleasure ; artistic voyages, that Lazarus may see the 
 world and gain instruction. If all these were false 
 terrors ! 
 
 DOL. Not a word to anybody. 
 
 JUAN. Not to Carmen*-say nothing to Carmen. 
 
 DOL. Poor Carmen, my poor angel ! But you are 
 right. The first is Lazarus.
 
 THE SON OF DON JUAN. 95 
 
 JUAN. The first that's clear. But that girl does 
 not come, and I am choking. 
 
 Enter TERESA and DON TlMOTEO. 
 
 TER. (announcing, and with the glass of water). 
 Here is Don Timoteo. 
 
 JUAN. Let him come in. 
 
 TER. He is already in. 
 
 JUAN (to DOLORES). Silence, and let us affect in- 
 difference. 
 
 DOL. (aside). Indifference and gaiety. ( Wiping her 
 eyes. DON JUAN drinks a glass of water.) 
 
 JUAN (to DOLORES). Will you take some ? Drink, 
 dear. Be calm ! [Exit TERESA. 
 
 DOL. Thank you ; I am calm now. 
 
 TIM. Dona Dolores ! 
 
 DOL. Friend Don Timoteo ! 
 
 JUAN. My dear Timoteo ! (Wishing to embrace 
 him.) 
 
 TIM. Don't embrace me. Don't you see thai I 
 have come according to etiquette ? All in black ! 
 
 DOL. In black! Why? 
 
 JUAN. Why? 
 
 TIM. Don't be alarmed ; it is not mourning, but 
 etiquette. I come in all solemnity. Now you shall 
 see. Isn't Carmen here ? 
 
 DOL. We went together to hear Mass. She came 
 back with me and she is now in my sitting-room 
 with Don Nemesio and with Javier so merry ! 
 
 TIM. Then let everybody come here ! (DOLORES 
 rings the bell.) Everybody except Lazarus ; he 
 must come afterwards. Ah ! solemnity ! solemnity ! 
 (Laughing.) 
 
 TER. (entering). Senora . . . 
 
 DOL. Let the Senorita Carmen have the goodness to 
 come here.
 
 96 THE SON OF DON JUAN. 
 
 TIM. She and all all. And till they come let no 
 one speak to me. 
 
 DOL. (aside to DON JUAN). Don't you guess ? 
 
 JUAN (aside). Yes. [A pause. 
 
 TIM. Solemn silence! Silence, a precursor of 
 something very grave. Ha ! ha ! 
 
 Enter CARMEN, NEMESIO, and JAVIER. 
 
 CAR. (to her father). Did you call me ? 
 TIM. Silence, little one. Don't you see how grave 
 we all are ? 
 
 CAR. But what's the matter ? 
 
 TIM. (to his daughter). You stand beside Dolores. 
 
 A movement among all: CARMEN embraces 
 
 DOLORES. 
 So : that's well. 
 
 DOL. My own daughter ! 
 
 JUAN (aside). God assist me ! 
 
 NEM. Ah ha ! 
 
 JAV. (to NEMESIO). We are having a wedding. 
 
 TIM. Silence ! Are we ready ? All attention and 
 every solemnity for I am going to begin. Ah ! you, 
 Javier, being the youngest man here, shall go out in 
 haste at the fitting moment to find Lazarus " Lazarus ! 
 Lazarus ! " You understand ? So, so all very quiet : 
 hanging on my lips. (A pause.) Senor Don Juan 
 Mejia (with comic solemnity?) My dear sir The 
 devil, I seem as if I were going to write a letter ! 
 Juanito, you asked me for the hand of Carmen for 
 Lazarus : I have consulted the girl, she is dying about 
 the boy, and now I bring the girl to the boy. And I 
 say before all Let them be married the devil let 
 them be married ! (with great energy.) The pro- 
 gramme in these cases gentlemen, the programme.
 
 THE SON OF DON JUAN. 97 
 
 The blushing, the weeping, the smiling, the em- 
 bracing ! 
 
 (All spontaneously go through the instructions. 
 CARMEN and DOLORES embrace, and DOLORES 
 weeps passionately. NEMESIO and JAVIER laugh 
 while pointing out the groups. TlMOTEO and 
 NEMESIO likewise embrace. Then TIMOTEO, as 
 if recollecting himself, continues} 
 Javier go and look for Lazarus Away, the situation 
 is falling flat ! 
 JAV. I am off I am off ! Lazarus ! Lazarus ! 
 
 [Exit. 
 
 CAR. Mother 1 
 
 DOL. My own daughter my own daughter ! 
 (Aside.} My God ! My God ! 
 TIM. (to DON JUAN). And you say nothing? 
 JUAN. Why, nothing more was required. 
 TIM. But he is not coming. 
 
 Re-enter JAVIER and LAZARUS ; the latter pale, 
 disordered, and materially dragged along by the 
 former. 
 
 LAZ. Where are you taking me ? Where ? 
 
 JAV. Come, man, come ... to happiness ! 
 
 LAZ. What's this ? What do they want with me ? 
 Why do they call me ? 
 
 TIM. Tableau ! Carmen is yours ! I bring her 
 to you ! You are to be married ! (To DON JUAN.) 
 Eh ! you father of a cork-tree, say something to them ; 
 I have gone through all my part ! 
 
 LAZ. Carmen she is it true ? My Carmen ! 
 
 DOL. Your Carmen she is yours. 
 
 JUAN. What the devil ! She is yours be happy, 
 and let the world founder ! what do I care for the 
 world ! 
 
 5
 
 98 THE SON OF DON JUAN. 
 
 LAZ. Mine, mine ! I may go to her ! fold her in 
 my arms ! embrace her with all my soul ! drink her 
 in with my eyes ! I may if I like ? 
 
 JUAN. Yes ! enough that you say yes ! 
 
 LAZ. Oh, the infamy of it ! Oh, the treachery ! 
 Carmen ! 
 
 CAR. (going up to him}. Lazarus ! 
 
 LAZ. No, keep off! To whom are you coming? 
 You are not to be mine ! Never never never ! 
 
 CAR. He casts me off ! He casts me off ! I knew 
 it ! Mother ! mother ! (Falls into the arms oj 
 DOLORES.) 
 
 DOL. Daughter of my heart ! 
 
 TIM. My daughter ! What have you done ? What 
 have you done ? 
 
 NEM. But I don't understand. 
 
 JAV. I do. 
 
 All hasten to help CARMEN. 
 
 JUAN. Lazarus my son ! 
 
 LAZ. (embracing his father). Father father you 
 are my father, save me ! 
 " JUAN/Yes, I shall save you I gave you life ! 
 
 LAZ. You gave me life ! But that's not enough : 
 give me more life to live, to love, to be happy give 
 me life for my own Carmen give me more life, or 
 cursed be the life which you gave me ! 
 
 [Falls insensible. 
 
 END OF ACT II.
 
 ACT III. 
 
 The scene represents a room in the country seat of DON 
 JUAN, on the banks of the Guadalquivir , in accor- 
 dance with the description in the earlier part of the 
 first act, although with some pieces of furniture^ of 
 a more recent Pe^da^d^j^j^sobexja^f. There 
 still remain some divans, the carpet and various 
 objects of art. Furthermore, a little table and a 
 low chair. In the background is a balcony or 
 terrace, which is understood to encircle the building. 
 There is an ample view of the sky and of the 
 horizon. If the balcony can be made to slope 
 somewhat towards the left, so much the better for 
 the final scene. A door at the right, another to 
 the left. A lounge to the right : to the left a sofa : 
 a lighted lamp on some table to the side or at the 
 back. It is night : the sky blue and starlight ; as 
 the act proceeds the lights of dawn gradually 
 ascend. 
 
 DON TIMOTEO, JAVIER and PACA are dis- 
 covered; the last named walks about the back and 
 on the terrace as if to arrange something : she is 
 dressed in a black or very dark costume : mantle ' 
 of black crape and with fringes. 
 
 1 The original "panolon" is a sort of cloak or shawl or 
 blanket-like covering worn by Andalusian women. 
 99
 
 loo THE SON OF DON JUAN. 
 
 TIM. And so Dolores wrote to you ? 
 
 JAV. Yes, senor. Lazarus wished to see me : my 
 company was very much wanted to hasten on his 
 convalescence : he was talking constantly about me. 
 Finally, I said : " I must go there," I took the train, 
 and two hours ago I planted myself at the door of this 
 country seat, of this delightful country seat ; which 
 ought to have admirable views, as far as I have been 
 able to judge by the feeble light of the stars. 
 
 TIM. But didn't you know it ? Weren't you 
 acquainted with Don Juan's country seat ? 
 
 JAV. No, senor. 
 
 TIM. (waggishly], I was. I have known it for 
 many years. I knew it ay, when Juan and I were 
 young men ! When I used to call him Juanito, and 
 he called me Timoteito. Ah, ah ! (mysteriously?) 
 What a number of reminiscences these venerable 
 precincts awaken ! All that you see is impregnated 
 with love and madness, with alcohol and merriment. 
 I could tell you : on this divan Juan one day fell 
 down drunk : in that corner I fell one night in the 
 same condition : and on that balcony we both fell one 
 morning in a similar situation. Oh, most sacred 
 memories ! Oh, beloved images of the past 1 (To 
 PACA). What are you doing here ? 
 
 PACA. I am putting everything in order, senor. 
 
 TIM. And now you will see such a panorama. That 
 balcony looks toward the East, and you see the 
 Guadalquivir " Sevilla, Guadalquivir, how you do 
 torment my mind ! " The loveliest girls of the 
 Sevillian land have breakfasted here, have danced 
 here, have sung here, and have got drunk here. 
 
 JAV. Ah, ha ! you amused yourselves here in fine 
 style. 
 
 PACA sighs.
 
 THE SON OF DON JUAN. 101 
 
 TIM. (turning round in ih humour). Have you 
 not done ? Have you not done, Paca. 
 
 PACA. Well, I remained to see if you gentlemen 
 wanted anything, that's all. 
 
 TIM. Nothing, you may go to the kitchen. 
 
 PACA. Very well, Don Timoteo: to the kitchen. 
 Ah ! my God ! (She takes a low chair on to the 
 terrace, sits down and fans herself.) 
 
 TIM. I tell you that I can look at nothing which 
 surrounds me without being moved. The girls from 
 Sevilla, the girls from Malaga, the girls from Tarifa ! 
 But let us make a full stop. I am perverting you, 
 young man : and at my age that's a villainous thing. 
 But the fact is that there were certain girls from 
 Sevilla and Malaga and Cadiz, and certain girls from 
 Tarifa. 
 
 PACA gives a very dig sigh on the balcony. 
 
 Who's that sighing ? The devil of a woman, there's 
 nothing dismal in what we are saying are you here 
 still ? 
 
 PACA (from the balcony and without rising). To 
 see if Don Timoteo wanted anything. 
 
 TIM. I do want something, and this gentleman 
 wants something. Bring us a few glasses. 1 
 
 PACA rises and approaches. 
 
 JAV. Many thanks : they gave me supper a short 
 time ago : it is now very late and I take nothing 
 at such an hour as this. (To PACA.) Don't trouble 
 yourself on my account. 
 
 PACA. Then. 
 
 * " Glasses." The word in the original, throughout this act 
 is canas or canitas. These are conical-shaped glasses from 
 which Spaniards drink Manzanilla a lighter wine than sherry.
 
 1O2 THE SON OF DON JUAN. 
 
 TIM. Then, trouble yourself on my account Go 
 go, and bring that. 
 
 PACA. Yes, senor, yes ; I am going, Don Timoteo. 
 
 [Exit fanning herself. 
 
 JAV. Good heavens ! Manzanilla at this hour ? 
 
 TIM. Yes, yes, of course, I know that you are very 
 steady. Lazarus writes dramas ; you write history ; 
 but, my friend, a glass is taken at any historical 
 moment whatever. 
 
 JAV. At any historical moment ? But one o'clock 
 in the morning, although it be an exquisite morning 
 of summer, is that an historical moment or a moment 
 to go to sleep ? 
 
 TIM. For the pleasure of tasting, eh ? for the 
 pleasure of tasting a sweet little drop of Manzanilla, 
 the twenty-four hours of this day, and the twenty-four 
 of the following, and those of the next, are marked 
 down in all treatises, young man. Admit that there 
 are no young men nowadays. 
 
 JAV. How can it be helped? There are young 
 men who are old, and there are old men who die 
 quite young. 
 
 TIM. It's true. Since I came eight days ago to the 
 country seat, my remembrances have become re- 
 freshed, and I feel as if I were fifteen years old. 
 
 JAV. And in a few more days you'll feel as if you 
 were fifteen months. 
 
 TIM. Halloa ! Halloa ! that figure of speech is 
 called irony. 
 
 JAV. A respectful irony, Don Timoteo. But I 
 did not think to meet you at the country seat of 
 Don Juan. 
 
 TIM. I had brought poor Carmen to Sevilla. She 
 is very delicate. With those unfortunate events 
 with the illness of Lazarus and what you know
 
 THE SON OF DON JUAN. 103 
 
 already. But when once at Sevilla, Juanito was 
 anxious that we should come and pass a few days 
 here. And I, to give that pleasure to Carmen, and 
 to contribute to the recovery of Lazarus who, they 
 declared, was going on very well I consented and 
 here we are. 
 
 JAV. Restored to youth. 
 
 TIM. Believe me, Javier, in what I told you just 
 now : there is no longer any youth now : Carmen with 
 her afflicted little chest : Lazarus with his disordered 
 nerves ; you with your sedateness and your megrim. 
 We were of another stamp. 
 
 JAV. Perhaps it's because you were of another 
 stamp, that we are made after this fashion. But let 
 us change the subject, Don Timoteo. And so there 
 is a complete reconciliation, and a wedding in per- 
 spective? 
 
 TIM. I'll tell you, I'll tell you. But that Paca is 
 not bringing the Manzanilla. (Looking to see if she 
 comes.} Really there was no cause to be offended. 
 Lazarus said what he said in a fever ! You saw him 
 fall senseless at the feet of Carmen. What the devil 
 was the meaning of that ? Go and learn that. In 
 my time when a man fell down thus, it was decided 
 to be drunkenness or apoplexy, and so medical science 
 became simplified and was within the reach of every- 
 body. But in these days, interpret you who can what's 
 the matter with the man who falls insensible. 
 
 JAV. Poor Lazarus was very ill. However, they 
 say that he is now getting on perfectly : the malady 
 has passed the critical point. 
 
 TIM. So they say and he seems very much restored : 
 but he is always a very extraordinary person like all 
 men of talent. 
 
 JAV. And so we shall have the wedding.
 
 IO4 THE SON OF DON JUAN. 
 
 TIM. Hum wedding that's flour from another 
 sack. I say nothing so as not to distress Carmen, 
 not Fo be disagreeable to the parents, and because I 
 would not give the boy another fainting fit. If 
 Lazarus recovers completely and comes back to what 
 he was, and writes something that will bring him con- 
 siderable fame sufficient to prove that his brain is 
 quite sound then the way is clear eh ? Because 
 Carmen, poor Carmen. But this Paca is not coming ! 
 
 JAV. Carmen is very fond of him, is she not ? 
 
 TIM. I don't know I don't know that girl, God 
 help me ! I am taking her away soon : within four 
 or five hours we shall set out to catch the train. And 
 before going away I shall speak to Bermudez. 
 
 JAV. I only saw Lazarus for a moment, and he 
 seemed to me 
 
 TIM. How? 
 
 JAV. Much better. Youth works miracles. (Aside.} 
 Poor Lazarus! 
 
 TIM. It's true, it's true. I myself had I don't 
 know what and I was so to say crazy for more 
 than a year much more ; and it passed off. 
 
 JAV. Well nobody would think it I mean nobody 
 would think that you had ever had anything of 
 that kind of infirmity eh? 
 
 TIM. Well, I had it, I had it they believed that it 
 had left me an idiot 
 
 JAV. Jesus, Mary, and Joseph ! 
 
 TIM. But that devil of a woman who is not coming ! 
 She knew quite well that the Manzanilla was only for 
 me, and she delights in mortifying me. She has a 
 most perverse mind. And she was always the same ; 
 you don't know what that woman has been ! 
 
 JAV. Who ? She who was here just now ? 
 
 TIM. Exactly ; that was one of the most magnificent
 
 THE SON OF DON JUAN. 105 
 
 women in all Andalusia. She was called Paca the 
 Tarifena. 
 
 JAV. Ah ha ! who would have said so ! 
 
 TIM. I should have said so, Juanito would have 
 said so, Nemesio would have said so, and everybody 
 would have said so. The Tarifena ! the girl from 
 Tarifa ! she who acts in this house to-day as a"~l 
 servant or little better, twenty or thirty years ago , 
 commanded like a mistress. Afterwards, as always 
 happens, she rambled about rambled about and 
 farewell beauty, farewell grace, farewell magnificence. 
 Old age, ugliness and misery, the three enemies I'll 
 not say of the soul, but of the bodies of pretty girls, 
 fed themselves upon the gay Tarifena. Five or six 
 years ago Juan got to know of it ; he felt sorry, and he 
 took her into this country house, as mistress of the 
 keys or something as a matter of form. In short, 
 she is in service in the country seat ; but she will not 
 be of much service, for she was always very lively, 
 but very lazy. 
 
 JAV. Yet, so beautiful ? 
 
 TIM. A sun ! But women break down early. We 
 men preserve ourselves better. Who would say that 
 I am fifty-eight years old ? 
 
 JAV. Nobody ! Whatever else you may be accused 
 of (Aside.} Seventy-five ! 
 
 TIM. I should think so. Halloa ! I think Lazarus 
 is coming. 
 
 Enter LAZARUS on the left. Behind comes Doctor 
 BERMUDEZ, but at a certain distance from 
 LAZARUS, as if observing him and being on the 
 watch. 
 
 LAZ. (looking at DON TIMOTEO and JAVIER). 
 This night we are all sitting up, the sitting up of the 
 farewell.
 
 io6 THE SON OF DON JUAN. 
 
 TIM. I am obliged to you, but there was no need 
 for you to trouble yourself. Let us say farewell now : 
 you go to bed : and Carmen and I at daybreak, very 
 quietly, without rousing anybody, will set out for the 
 train. 
 
 LAZ. So, so ; very quietly, without waking anybody, 
 in the silence of the night : so you wish to steal 
 Carmen away. And so happiness is stolen away. 
 Treachery ! But I am watching and I shall watch : 
 Lazarus has risen, and now he will never sleep any 
 more. These eyes are very wide open to see every- 
 thing (tenderly) : the dear little head of my Carmen 
 (laughing), the great, villainous head of Don Timoteo. 
 To see the day with its splendour and the night with 
 its gloom. (Going to the balcony?) How beautiful is 
 the morning star is it not ? It is always there. 
 We seem to have made an appointment with each 
 other. " I shall appear in heaven," she says, " and 
 do you appear at the balcony, and we shall gaze upon 
 each other." I cannot gaze upon you, forgive me ; 
 Carmen would be jealous. She not being at my side, 
 I do not wish to gaze on anybody, I do not care to see 
 anybody. (Withdraws irritably from the balcony and 
 sees BERMUDEZ.) Halloa, dearest doctor, were you 
 here ? Did you follow me ? Did they send you to 
 take charge of me ? Well, look you, it annoys me to 
 have a sentinel always in sight (Restraining himself 
 and changing his tone) unless he be so kind hearted 
 as my dear doctor. 
 
 They all advance to the first entrance. 
 BERM. I came with you to beg you not to sit up. 
 Now go to bed, take some rest, and at daybreak I 
 shall awaken you that you may bid good-bye to 
 Carmen and to Don Timoteo.
 
 THE SON OF DON JUAN. 107 
 
 LAZ. That's what you want ! I am not a child : I 
 am not to be deceived. How does he who sleeps 
 know what he will see on his awaking? If he does 
 awake ! (Sits down.) 
 
 TIM. However. (Approaching him.) 
 
 JAV. (approaching still nearer). I give you my 
 word. . . . 
 
 BERM. (All surround him.) We all promise you 
 solemnly 
 
 LAZ. It is useless don't trouble yourselves. 
 Besides I neither believe anybody, nor trust in any- 
 body. I don't trust myself, and I am always observing 
 myself whether perchance in short, I understand 
 myself : then how should I trust you ? You perceive 
 that that's asking too much. And enough, enough 
 1 have said no. 
 
 BERM. As you please, Lazarus. 
 
 LAZ. Moreover, sitting up is delightful. What a 
 sky ! what a night, what a river ! Just now we were 
 downstairs in the drawing-room that looks on to the 
 garden, my mother, my father, Carmen, the doctor, 
 I (counting on his fingers) and Paca likewise. All 
 seated, all resting, and somewhat sleepy, excepting 
 Paca. In an angle a lamp : the doors on a level with 
 the outside : the sky in the distance : the garden with 
 its twining plants and its rose trees making itself a 
 portion of the saloon, as if to bear us company : the 
 penetrating perfumes of the lemon flower, and the 
 freshness of the river impregnating the atmosphere : 
 little insects of all colours, a few butterflies among 
 them, as if engendered by the air, came from without, 
 attracted by the lamp, and fluttered between the light 
 and the gloom, as ideas revolve within me now ; and 
 Paca too was fluttering amidst us all. (A pause.) 
 What, you are laughing ? (To JAVIER.) 

 
 THE SON OF DON JUAN. 
 
 JAV. I am not laughing. 
 
 LAZ. Yes ; you laugh because I said that Paca was 
 fluttering between my father, my mother, Carmen and 
 myself. Well, I maintain it : is it only butterflies 
 that flutter about ? Flies and gad-flies flutter as well. 
 And so, as I lay there with eyes half closed, Paca, 
 with her black dress and her black mantle with its 
 fringe, seemed to me an enormous fly. She fluttered 
 ponderously from my father to my mother serving 
 my father with sherry and my mother with iced water 
 and between Carmen and myself, to worry me with 
 questions, and to fix a flower in Carmen's hair, rustling 
 against us both with her mantle and its fringes, as a 
 fly rustles with its dark and hairy wings. She is a 
 kind woman but I felt a repugnance, a loathing, and 
 a chill, and I came up to stand and breathe on yonder 
 balcony. 
 
 JAV. And to contemplate the stars. 
 
 LAZ. One, no more than one. And such extrava- 
 gant ideas ! But we apprentices of poetry are thus. 
 You are right, Bermudez, extravagant very very . 
 I was thinking of Paca, I was gazing at the star, and 
 I felt an insane, ridiculous, but unconquerable desire. 
 It was to seize one of my foils, to run it through the 
 gad-fly with her fringed mantle, as one runs an insect 
 through with a pin, and to burn her at the light of 
 that most beautiful star. Like what ? The putre- 
 scence of humanity which is consumed and purified in 
 heavenly flames. You don't understand me, Don 
 Timoteo ? 
 
 TIM. Well, I don't think there is much to under- 
 stand and even though a man may not be a 
 genius 
 
 LAZ. Don't be vexed : these are jokes : I offend 
 you ? The father of Carmen ? when for her sake I
 
 THE SON OF DON JUAN. 109 
 
 am ready to go down on my knees and to declare that 
 you are young and beautiful and that you have brains, 
 and to compel the whole world to declare the same. 
 Your arms, Don Timoteo, your arms. (They em- 
 brace.} You bear no grudge against me, do you ? 
 
 TlM. Dear me, why should I ? 
 
 LAZ. Then don't take away Carmen ; don't sepa- 
 rate me from her. A sick man should have his way 
 in everything and it would make me worse, let 
 Bermudez tell you. Is it not true that it would make 
 me ill ? Say it say it ? 
 
 TIM. But you are well now ? 
 
 BERM. Quite well. 
 
 LAZ. And you, what do you say ? 
 
 JAV. My boy, I find you as well as ever. 
 
 TIM. And I really must go to Sevilla. But we 
 shall soon come back to be reunited. You are not a 
 convalescent : you don't require to stay here. Away 
 home to work ! 
 
 LAZ. (in the ear of TIM.). Then when shall the 
 wedding be ? 
 
 TIM. For my part any day but that, let the 
 doctor say. 
 
 LAZ. Not that man not that man ah I know him 
 and yet let him say. 
 
 BERM. It depends on the state of mind that you are' 
 in : if you are in a sound state of mind, very soon. 
 
 LAZ. Well, before you take Carmen away you have 
 to decide it. The morning approaches it will be 
 here in less than two or three hours. You see that 
 brightness ? It is beginning to dawn already, and we 
 must sit up by all means. Therefore you go in there, 
 into that cabinet and jyou fix the date. I shall not 
 be in your way. Now you see that I can do no more. 
 But you must say when and let me know ; when I
 
 no THE SON OF DON JUAN. 
 
 know it I shall be more at ease. With to-day there 
 will be one day less : two less : three it is not far off 
 now : very little short of the time : three days off, two 
 days off, one day off, it is to-morrow, it is to-day she 
 is my Carmen for ever she is mine (vehemently], 
 Now, let who dare force her from my arms ! Oh ! 
 Carmen now belongs to Lazarus. (Changing his 
 tone.} I am saying what will happen when you fix 
 the day because by the fixing of the day we only 
 want two now we are only short of one now it has 
 arrived all happy ! (Embracing- TlM. and JAV.). 
 It's true, it's true ! And now, in there. 
 
 TIM. For my part, with much pleasure, and it seems 
 to me a good idea. Will you have it so, Bermudez^_ 
 
 BERM. I am at your orders and if Lazarus 
 insists 
 
 LAZ. No more no more enter here and in all 
 freedom. Your little cabinet the balcony open 
 the flowers of that terrace which are beginning to take 
 colour the Guadalquivir which commences to waken 
 with its silver lights. Very good very good you 
 are going to be perfectly comfortable and all this 
 will incline you to good nature. Don't be very cruel 
 don't fix too long a term for in this world, what is 
 not to-day is never. 
 
 TIM. Shall we go in ? 
 
 BERM. Yes, senor. 
 
 They move slowly and speaking in low tones toward 
 the right. 
 
 LAZ. (in a low, energetic -voice to JAVIER). And 
 you, too, go. I don't trust them. The wretches, 
 they would say never : go, go, with them. 
 
 JAV. But I 
 
 LAZ. (BERM. and TIM. are now at the door). Eh ?
 
 THE SON OF DON JUAN. in 
 
 wait. Javier is accompanying you, I have requested 
 him because I wish to have some one who may plead 
 for me and for Carmen. This you cannot deny me. 
 
 TIM. I should think not come come. 
 
 JAV. (to LAZ.). If you insist. 
 
 LAZ. In there, all three all three and afterwards 
 we shall give an account of all to my mother and my 
 father and Carmen. Quick quick 
 
 BERM. (at the door). You two go in 
 
 TIM. You go in first. 
 
 BERM. By no means. 
 
 LAZ. Go in any way : I am waiting 
 
 BERM. We shall soon have done. Be calm, Lazarus, 
 be calm.' 
 
 LAZ. ;(alone). Yes: he is right: I have need of 
 much calm. Outside there all is calm : then why 
 should I not be calm as well ? Without there is 
 twilight (pressing his forehead) : within here is 
 another twilight. But yonder half obscurity will end 
 by filling itself with light. And this this ? I seem 
 to see beyond the luminous little clouds a great gloom. 
 There without are worlds and suns and immensity 
 yet nothing of that bears the least consequence to me : 
 here within are three insignificant persons and it is 
 they who are about to decide my destiny. To be 
 menaced with the danger of one of those orbs that 
 whirl through space overwhelming Carmen and my- 
 self there would be grandeur for us in such a fate. 
 But to be threatened with the possibility of a doctor 
 and a fool putting me in a cage and leaving Carmen 
 outside, to fret her pale front against the cold iron 
 bars this is cruel, this is humiliating and nobody 
 shall humiliate me. I am worth more than them all 
 put together. I am better than them all. (Interrupt- 
 ing himself.} Better than Carmen ? no. Neither am
 
 H2 THE Sox OF DON JUAN. 
 
 I better than my mother. And my father my father 
 he loves me much more than I silence ! Yet if he 
 is capable of loving more than I, then he is better 
 than I the result is that everybody is better than 
 Lazarus. How is this possible? (Walks about in 
 -^ great agitation?) 
 
 Enter PACA with some cups of Manzanilla. 
 Who is this ? It is Paca. Why the result will be 
 I see it that even that creature is better than myself. 
 
 PACA. Is not Don Timoteo here ? Then why does 
 he give orders for nothing? He gives orders and 
 then he goes away. 
 
 LAZ. Whom are you looking for ? 
 
 PACA. For Don Timoteo : he asked me for some cups 
 of Manzanilla, and he went away without waiting for me. 
 
 LAZ. Bring them, bring them. I'll take them. 
 Leave them here. 
 
 PACA (putting them on a little table). You, 
 senorito ? And if they do you harm ? 
 
 LAZ. Harm to me ? Poor woman ! Look 
 (drinks a cup.} I drink and you flutter about. 
 
 PACA. I flutter about, senorito? Ah ! what things 
 you say ! 
 
 LAZ. What do you see out there ? 
 
 PACA. Nothing. 
 
 LAZ. Just so. Nothing : that's what we all see. 
 And inside here, what do you see ? 
 
 PACA. Well, you. 
 
 LAZ. That's it, the son of Don Juan drinking ; and 
 Paca whirling around. (Drinks another glass.) 
 
 PACA. Don't drink any more, senorito : you are not 
 at all well and it will do you harm. And Dona 
 Dolores will be grieved and Don Juan will be grieved. 
 
 LAZ. And I'll make the Manzanilla grieve. And 
 you, won't you be grieved ?
 
 THE SON OF DON JUAN. 113 
 
 PACA. Why yes : for I am very fond of the 
 senorito. 
 
 LAZ. The result is that everybody is fond of me. 
 Everybody is fond of me, and I am fond of nobody. 
 Ah I of Carmen yes : and of my mother as well : 
 and of my father : and of poor Javier well, then I 
 am fond of everybody This (taking a cup or glass.} 
 must make it clear. (Giving PACA a glass.} Let us 
 both make it clear. 
 
 PACA (stopping him}. Senorito, for God's sake ! 
 
 LAZ. No ; it isn't for God's sake, it's for mine. 
 
 PACA. If you insist. (Drinks.) 
 
 LAZ. And now I. (Takes up another glass .} 
 
 PACA (stopping him). No ; not you. 
 
 LAZ. Well then, you. 
 
 PACA. Ah ! by the most Holy Virgin, you see I 
 hare lost the practice. 
 
 LAZ. You fool, why this is very healthy. It gives 
 you strength. I now feel capable of anything. Awhile 
 ago you seemed to me all funereal; now I perceive 
 your black cloak to be all overspread with spangles of 
 gold, and fragments of rainbow, like the wings of a 
 butterfly. 
 
 PACA. Ah, senorito, I have been that. Ask 
 
 LAZ. Ask whom ? 
 
 PACA. Nobody anybody whatever. Ugh, I am 
 stifled. (Lets fall the black handkerchief from her 
 head over her shoulders.} Yes, senorito when people 
 said the Tarifena there was no need to say more. 
 
 LAZ. That was a climax, eh ? Well, take another 
 and you shall begin again. 
 
 PACA. You see we shall both be getting upset. 
 
 ( They take the glasses.} 
 LAZ. Listen, Tarifena, sylph of former times, en-
 
 ii4 THE SON OF DON JUAN. 
 
 chanting siren of our forefathers, moth-eaten memorial 
 of their joys, will you do me a favour ? 
 
 PACA. I should think so. I am loyal to the house, 
 and to all that's in the house, and to you, senorito, 
 because you are of the house. 
 
 LAZ. Good ; and to those who are not of the house, 
 no. Well, inside there are three who are not of the 
 house: Don Timoteo, Bermudez, and Javier. And 
 those three are working so that I may not be married 
 to Carmen. They say that I am ill, that I am a bad 
 fellow, that I would cause much misery to Carmen ; 
 in short, they propose to break off my wedding see 
 what infamy ! 
 
 PACA. Old men never wish young people to be 
 married ; old men are great scoundrels. Old women 
 are quite the contrary ; we old women would like 
 everybody to get married. Why, what does the 
 human race exist for ? To get married ; exactly. 
 And you and beautiful little Carmen will make such a 
 pair ! 
 
 LAZ. You are very kind, very tender-hearted ; you 
 don't wish any one to suffer pain. Take this (gives her 
 another cup} 
 
 PACA. Ah ! yes, senorito, although it doesn't 
 become me to talk about my being tender-hearted, 
 I never harmed any one. 
 
 LAZ. So ought all women with good hearts to be. 
 Take 
 
 PACA (refusing if}. I can't take any more. I can't 
 take any more. 
 
 LAZ. Then listen. That cabinet leads to the ter- 
 race, and the terrace goes round the house you 
 understand ? and the window which looks on to the 
 terrace is on a level with it, so that if you go on to 
 the terrace by here, and approach, you can hear
 
 THE SON OK DON JUAN. 1 1 5 
 
 everything ; and if they wish to separate me from my 
 own little Carmen, you come and tell me, and I'll 
 know what to do. 
 
 PACA (laughing). What good ideas you have, 
 senorito. I should think I would do this ! the vaga- 
 bonds ! But Don Juan wishes you to be married? 
 
 LAZ. Does he not wish it ! The one who does not 
 wish it is Don Timoteo. The one who wishes to 
 carry off little Carmen as soon as daylight comes, is 
 he ! The one who means to strangle them all is 
 myself. And the one who has to make fools of them 
 that's you. 
 
 PACA. With the very greatest pleasure. 
 
 LAZ. But first of all go down to the garden, enter 
 the drawing-room my father and mother will be 
 sleeping, Carmen will be awake ; Carmen does not 
 sleep, I know that ! and without any one but herself 
 hearing you, tell her that I am waiting for her ; tell 
 her to come up, that at dawn her father is taking her 
 away, and that I want to bid her farewell. You 
 understand ? 
 
 PACA. Yes, senorito Farewell ! Farewells are 
 
 very sad. I have bidden farewell many times, and I 
 have always wept. 
 
 LAZ. Good. Well now you shall weep again. We 
 shall all weep. 
 
 PACA. Don't say that. 
 
 LAZ. Yes, you simpleton, weeping relieves you. 
 Take note : laughing tires you, and weeping relieves 
 you. 
 
 PACA. Well now it's true. Ah ! what you do know, 
 senorito ! 
 
 LAZ. Take this (giving her a glass}. You and I are 
 also going to bid farewell to each other : clink clink 
 ex-Tarifena.
 
 n6 THE SON OF DON JUAN. 
 
 PACA. To the health of the Senorita Carmen. 
 
 LAZ. To the health of the man whom you have 
 most loved when you were in love. 
 
 PACA. Then to the health to the health of all the 
 family ! 
 
 LAZ. {reversing the glass). Look, not a drop ! 
 
 PACA. The same with me. 
 
 LAZ. And now to call Carmen and afterwards to 
 listen to what those people say. 
 
 PACA. I am going there ; give me another to take 
 breath. 
 
 LAZ. Drink, my dear, drink. 
 
 PACA. You shall see what I am. (Goes towards the 
 cabinet.) 
 
 LAZ. No, not that way ; I told you by the terra ceT~ 
 (Making her go out by the terrace.) 
 
 PACA. Ha, ha ! Yes, I shall know it all some day. 
 He wants to show me the way of the house (laughing). 
 
 LAZ. Now quick ; and first of all let Carmen come. 
 
 PACA. At once, .at once; but don't make her cry, 
 poor little thing, poor little thing ; men like to make 
 women cry; but she she is such a sweet little thing. 
 Jesus, how warm it is ! [Goes out by the terrace. 
 
 "~~LAZ. (alone). I feel more confident I find the 
 strength flowing into my arms. To defend Carmen I 
 need much strength. Well, I have it now. Every- 
 thing is dawning everything is rising everything is 
 returning. Light on the horizon, life to my muscles, 
 and Carmen to me. Lazarus is Lazarus. The moment 
 has arrived for the struggle for the supreme struggle. 
 But here one cannot struggle. Everything is soft and 
 yielding. The carpet soft, the divans soft, the East 
 filled with gauze and tufts of cotton wool. I want 
 rock whereon to lean back, a sword to cut, a mace 
 to crush hardness, angles, metals that may offer
 
 THE SON OF DON JUAN. 117 
 
 resistance to me and let me reduce all to powder 
 (pressing his forehead}. I feel the blood whirling 
 round within my temples ! (pressing his bosom} fire 
 in my breast ! engines of steel in my arms 1 
 
 (CARMEN appears on the terrace with PACA who 
 points her out to LAZARUS, then disappears.} 
 Carmen ! 
 
 CAR. Lazarus ! 
 
 LAZ. (strains her frantically in his arms}. Carmen, 
 my own Carmen. Now let them say what they like, 
 those imbeciles, and let them come to seek you. 
 
 CAR. But what's the matter with you ? My God 1 
 I don't understand. 
 
 LAZ. You don't understand that I love you more / 
 than my life, and that I have never told you so ? 
 
 CAR. Yes, you have many times told me so. 
 
 LAZ. But in very poor fashion coldly, lifelessly. 
 The fact is that there is no way of saying these things. 
 Commonplace words, commonplace phrases ! " I love 
 you more than my life, more than my soul ; you are 
 my happiness, you are my hope, my dream. . . ." 
 Pshaw ! Everybody says that. It has become pro- 
 faned on all lips. 
 
 CAR. When I heard you speak so, it seemed 
 to me that you were the only one in the world who 
 said such things. 
 
 LAZ. No, you little goose, they all say them. And 
 I don't wish to say what everybody says ; because 
 you are not like other people, and for you it is 
 necessary to invent other things. Let me see, what 
 shall I invent ? 
 
 CAR. What you like. But while you are invent- 
 ing, you may go on saying what you used to say, for it 
 sounds well to me and if it doesn't trouble you. . . . 
 
 LAZ. You will never have understood how I love
 
 u8 THE SON OF DON JUAN. 
 
 you, for I have not known how to explain myself ; I 
 have not understood it myself until now. I saw 
 surrounding me an immeasurable horizon, and I was 
 lost in the contemplation of it : worlds and marvels 
 and splendours and sounds and melodies. But now 
 all is obscured, all has become confined : a sombre 
 background which folds itself up, something like a 
 stupendous eyeball which becomes contracted, and 
 in the centre nothing is left but a small circle of light, 
 and in that circle is an image it is yours ; now all 
 has become blotted out, and there remains no more 
 than Carmen, and in Carmen I reconcentrate all that 
 lies before me of life, of longing, of thought, of love. 
 Let not the eyeball close up finally, for then I shall 
 be left in darkness. 
 
 CAR. Then you love me more than I thought? 
 What joy for me ! 
 
 LAZ. There is no reason to be joyful, for they wish 
 Jp_sepajatejas. 
 
 CAR. Who? 
 
 LAZ. They. ( Pointing to the cabinet.} 
 
 CAR. Why? 
 
 LAZ. Because I have not known how to explain to 
 them what you are to me, and neither have you 
 understood ; and they believe that we shall console 
 ourselves, that we shall grow resigned, that there is 
 nothing more to be said than, " Lock up Lazarus, 
 take away Carmen." Do you consent? 
 
 CAR. I ? No, never ; no, Lazarus, I am not re- 
 signed. I cannot do more than one thing : die. 
 Well, I shall die. Can I do more ? 
 
 LAZ. No ; that will do well ; that's enough. 
 
 CAR. But you can defend me. 
 
 LAZ. Defend you? How? Yes, I'll defend you; 
 but how ?
 
 THE SON OK DON JUAN. 119 
 
 CAR. Why, who threatens us ? 
 
 L\z. I don't know. I can't well explain. I am 
 now as it were on the boundaries of a desert ; a desert 
 contains much sand, which never ends ; much solitude 
 which is never filled ; much thirst which is never 
 quenched, and a sky which becomes flattened in the 
 centre as if it were about to fall, and which never 
 falls. At least if it did sink down all would be at an 
 end. 
 
 CAR. Yes, much sadness which never ends. I felt 
 that when I had doubts of you. It is true, the world 
 was a desert. 
 
 LAZ. Well in that desert you gather up a handful of 
 sand and you begin to count the little grains one, 
 two, three, hundreds, thousands and you never finish 
 counting. Yet there is no more than a handful and 
 you gather up another and you gather up another 
 and the sand never ends. And you run and run ; 
 but no, onward to the horizon all is overwhelmed 
 with sand. 
 
 CAR. But what's the meaning of this ? I don't 
 understand. 
 
 LAZ. It means it is very clear don't you see? 
 It seems clear to me, yet you don't understand. It 
 means that I, who had wild dreams of applause, of 
 glory, of gaining still more glory and applause with 
 my Carmen, I see before me the fate of having to 
 count grains and grains, handfuls and handfuls of 
 sand, for days and nights and years, until the end 
 if there be an end. I don't know if there be an end. 
 
 CAR. Lazarus, Lazarus, don't talk so ; don't look 
 in that way ! 
 
 LAZ. Then save me ! Why what did I call you for 
 except that you should save me ? 
 
 CAR. Yes, I will save you ; but how ?
 
 THE SON OF DON JUAN. 
 
 LAZ. Consider now whether you love me so much. 
 Suppose that we are about to say farewell for ever 
 .because we are on the confines of that desert both 
 together at a little fountain the last ! It holds fresh 
 water, the last ! On the falling of the tube into the 
 water it forms flakes of foam the last and I wish 
 /to drink for the last time and to cool my face and to 
 / sprinkle foam upon my lips that they may become 
 / wreathed in smiles. Help me look at me speak 
 < laugh sing weep do something, Carmen, for I am 
 now being hurried away from you. I am now going 
 into the desert ; do something ; throw me at least 
 what your hands will hold of water, that a few drops 
 may fall upon my face. 
 
 CARMEN folds him in her arms. 
 
 CAR. But why do you say that? I don't under- 
 stand. Are you sad ? Are you vexed ? Are you ill ? 
 These few days past, this very morning, you were so 
 well, so cheerful, Lazarus. 
 
 LAZ. They say that I am going to forget you 
 that soon I shall not know you that you will be close 
 to me, and I without suspecting it like a child 
 like an idiot 
 
 CAR. No, not that ! 
 
 LAZ. But if it should be so? 
 
 CAR. It will not be so. 
 
 LAZ. Why not? (His look begins to wander and 
 he scarcely hears what follows j he assumes the face 
 of an idiot and his arms fall to his sides.) 
 
 CAR. Because I shall be close to you and will 
 you not see me? Because I shall call to you 
 " Lazarus ! " and will you not answer me ? Because 
 I shall weep much, my tears will fall upon you and 
 will you not feel them ? I am weak as a child, but
 
 THE SON OF DON JUAN. 121 
 
 children too can hold on strongly. Lazarus, attend to 
 me; are you not attending to what I say? I am 
 Carmen. Look at me ! That pale little head which 
 you used to speak of is touching your lips. Look, I 
 am smiling at you. Laugh yourself. Answer me. 
 Lazarus Lazarus Awake ! Do you hear me ? What 
 are you looTcing at ? 
 
 LAZ. Yes I know I know but call my mother. 
 
 CAR. No I alone they would separate us : we 
 two alone. Why do you want your mother to come ? 
 
 LAZ. I want to sleep. 
 
 CAR. (looking on all sides). Then rest on me. 
 Sleep in my arms. 
 
 LAZ. You little fool, no. If I sleep it must be in 
 the arms of my mother. That's what mothers are 
 for. When I awake I shall call you. 
 
 CAR. Lazarus ! 
 
 LAZ. Call her! Don't I tell you to call her? 
 Obey, you selfish girl. Don't you wish that I should 
 have rest neither ? 
 
 CAR. Yes. I'll call her. (Walking to the door.} 
 My God ! 
 
 LAZ. Are you going or not ? Or must I go myself? 
 
 CAR. No ; wait ; it is that I am not able. (Stand- 
 ing at the door.) Dolores ! Don Juan ! 
 
 LAZ. I said my mother I only want one person ; 
 one. 
 
 CAR. Well, I was that one. 
 
 LAZ. No, she I can't say to you Mother ! 
 
 CAR. (calling). Dolores ! 
 
 LAZ. (going towards her and calling). Mother ! 
 
 CAR. They are coming now. 
 
 LAZ. Several are coming. I did not say so many. 
 
 I shall have to defend myself, and, to defend myself 
 
 I need to have much courage. (Drinks a glass.) 
 
 6
 
 122 THE SON OF DON JUAN. 
 
 CAR. Quick ! Here ! Dolores ! 
 
 Enter DOLORES and DON JUAN. 
 
 DOL. Why did you call? Is it that Lazarus ? 
 
 JUAN. What's the matter with Lazarus? 
 
 LAZ. Nothing ; Carmen was frightened I don't 
 know why, and she called. 
 
 CAR. He seems better. Lazarus, they are here 
 \jipw. Do you wish me to remain also? 
 
 LAZ. Why not ? Yes, everybody about me. As we 
 were downstairs. My mother, my father, sweet little 
 Carmen, I ! There's one short ah ! Paca. I still 
 keep my memory. (Laughing?) Well, yes, we are 
 short of Paca. Ha! Let us sit down as we were 
 before, and let us wait till the day arrives. It is now 
 about to dawn. Look, look what brightness there is 
 in the distance. A great sitting up I And why are 
 we sitting up ? 
 
 DOL. You wished it 
 
 JUAN. Yes, my son ; it was you that insisted upon 
 it ; and when you desire anything, what are we all for 
 but to give you pleasure ? 
 
 LAZ. We have to bid farewell to Carmen. A fare- 
 well is a very sad and solemn thing, a thing beyond 
 all consolation, and I have need to be consoled. 
 Come, mother, to this side ; come you also (to his 
 father) to the other side ; I must be between the two ; 
 and you must both tell me that this separation is a 
 passing one, that we shall soon be all reunited to 
 Carmen for ever and, such other things as are said ; 
 though they may not be true they are said. 
 
 DOLORES and JUAN are seated at either side 
 
 of LAZARUS. 
 DOL. But they are true. 
 JUAN. Why, nothing else was to happen.
 
 THE SON OF DON JUAN. 123 
 
 CARMEN approaches. 
 
 CAR. Yes, Lazarus, we shall be reunited very soon. 
 
 LAZ. (angrily). You must not come near. You 
 keep off. 
 
 CAR. (wiihdrawing in pain and anguish). Lazarus ! 
 
 DOL. Lazarus, look how poor Carmen is grieved. 
 
 JUAN. Nay, come, my daughter, come ; Lazarus 
 wishes you to come. 
 
 LAZ. It cannot be. It is she who is going away. 
 If she is going away she must be at a distance. And 
 from a distance I say " Adieu, Carmen, adieu ; I love 
 you deeply." ( With passion!) Do you see ? It is 
 not that I do not love her ; it is that things must be 
 as they are. 
 
 CAR. (restraining her grief, aside). Impossible ! 
 Impossible ! My Lazarus ! 
 
 DOL. (to her son). What's the matter with you ? 
 
 JUAN. How are you, Lazarus ? 
 
 LAZ. Very well ; between you two, very well, as 
 when I was a child, with the same calmness, the same 
 peace as then. 
 
 DOL. You remember ? 
 
 LAZ. Yes, for my head is very sound. With what 
 clearness I remember those times ! 
 
 JUAN (to DOLORES). You see? he is well, the same 
 as during all those days. Carmen has alarmed her- 
 self without cause. 
 
 CAR. That's true, without cause. 
 
 JUAN. His head is far more steady than ours. This 
 way between the two. 
 
 LAZ. No. I remember everything now ; between 
 the two, no ; I was alone with my mother ; you were 
 not there ! Go away, go away. (Putting his father 
 away without violence?)
 
 124 THE SON OF DON JUAN. 
 
 JUAN. You don't remember that well, Lazarus. 
 (With humility.) We were both beside you many 
 times. (In a tone of angttish.) Is it not true, 
 Dolores ? (In a supplicating manner!) 
 
 DOL. Yes, my dear. 
 
 LAZ. No I must not be contradicted. I was alone 
 with her. (Embracing her.) 
 
 DOL. My son. 
 
 JUAN. Why do you put me away ? Can I love you 
 more than I do ? 
 
 LAZ. Ah ! yes well, you are right, father. 
 
 JUAN. You see ? I was right ! 
 
 LAZ. Yes, once we were as we are now ha, ha, ha ! 
 
 JUAN. The same as now. 
 
 CAR. Oh, his look his look ! (Aside.) 
 
 LAZ. Hush hush. As now no, not as now. 
 My mother was dishevelled, weeping, but very beau- 
 tiful, and you haughty and disdainful, but gay and 
 elegant. Away ! and she weeping, sobbing, and you 
 laughing ; and you quarrelled how you quarrelled ! 
 it was terrible. 
 
 JUAN. No. 
 
 LAZ. Yes. I see it now. 
 
 CAR. (aside). His look ! How he stares on every 
 side ! 
 
 JUAN. Don't be angry but you don't remember 
 well. 
 
 LAZ. (angrily). I must not be contradicted. You 
 quarrelled. I know it I see it as I still feel that 
 terror. 
 
 JUAN. Lazarus ! 
 
 DOL. (to JUAN). Be quiet. 
 
 JUAN. Well, then we quarrelled a little dispute. 
 
 LAZ. (laughing). No no it was not a little dispute. 
 It was a desperate fight ; you quarrelled in deadly
 
 THE SON OF DON JUA\. 125 
 
 ^ - 
 
 earnest. And you, father, wished to take hold of me 
 and you took hold of me and gave me a caress. 
 (Laughing?) Come, come, you were not so bad. 
 
 JUAN. You see, Lazarus, you see? 
 
 LAZ. But my mother tore me out of your arms, and 
 she pressed me in her own, and said to you : " Off 
 with your hold ; go away ; go and enjoy yourself ; go 
 and get drunk. Leave him to me." 
 
 JUAN. No, Lazarus I think not as you were such 
 a child you don't remember. 
 
 DOL. (to JUAN). Silence ! 
 
 LAZ. And you cried out : "Well, then, remain with 
 him, and much good may he do you ! Much good ! " 
 What contempt ! and you pushed me away. 
 
 JUAN. No, no, that I did not. I never did so. 
 
 LAZ. Yes. 
 
 JUAN. No. 
 
 LAZ. (angrily}. I say yes. You pushed me leave 
 me, father ; leave me alone with my mother. (Putting 
 him away.) There, there, far off far off with Car- 
 men. 
 
 JUAN (withdraws and embraces CARMEN). Oh, my 
 Lazarus, my Lazarus ! 
 
 LAZ. (laughing, to his mother). There are the exiles 
 in their valley of tears. 
 
 CAR. It is not possible it is not possible ! Let 
 them come let them come ; jet them save 
 
 _ 
 
 JUAN. Yes let them save him. 
 
 LAZ. (to his mother). Now, with you. 
 
 DOL. With me always with me. 
 
 LAZ. Always with you ! No, that's not true neither. 
 Why, Lord, you people don't remember anything ; 
 here nobody remembers a thing but myself. You 
 sent me away very far to an accursed college. I 
 wished to stay with you, and you said, " Let them
 
 126 THE SON OF DON JUAN. 
 
 take him away, let them take him away ! " He (point- 
 ing to his father) said, " Stay with your mother," and 
 he went away. You said, " Let them take him away, 1 ' 
 and you remained alone. Both, bojhjrfjrpU- se P arate d 
 yourselves from me. Oh, I remember all this very 
 well, and until now I had never called it to mind. 
 Something seems to be melting within my brain ; 
 something goes on sweeping away the ruins of all 
 ideas of the present ; and, as amid soil which the 
 torrent drags along, there spring to light ancient 
 moulds, so within here there rushes up the entire world 
 ^_pf my childhood. So it is, and I remember every- 
 l thing. I fell asleep night after night without a kiss 
 \ from either of you. Morning after morning I awoke 
 Ljvithout a caress from any one. Alone I lived alone 
 I shall continue to live ; go, mother, to those yonder. 
 (Putting her away gently?) 
 
 DOL. (to JUAN). Ah ! through you ! (Turning back.} 
 Lazarus ! 
 
 GLAZ. I have said that I wish to be alone. I love 
 rou dearly, but take notice that things have to be 
 >recisely as they are. 
 
 DOL., CAR., and DON JUAN are together; LAZ. 
 contemplates them with a vague smile j then he 
 continues?) 
 
 Thus we are as we should be. Each one in his place 
 to every one his own. But I don't want to be so 
 lonely either. Let Paca come Paca ! 
 JUAN. Whom is he calling ? 
 LAZ. Her. Paca ! 
 
 Enter PACA. 
 PACA. Senorito. 
 
 LAZ. Come ; here very close. ( To the others.} 
 Now I am not alone, you see, father? Now I have
 
 THE SON OF DON JUAN. 127 
 
 company, and merrier company than yours you who 
 are sad and gloomy as death. Take a glass, Paca, 
 and give me another, and let us drink as we did a 
 short time ago. 
 
 DOL. Lazarus ! 
 
 PACA. Senorito, I drank a great deal, and now I 
 don't know now, my head is 
 
 LAZ. Yes, I insist on it you and I. 
 
 JUAN. Good God ! No. 
 
 LAZ. Why not? Ah, you egoist, that have your 
 own enjoyment and don't wish others to enjoy them- 
 selves. Well, I too wish to enjoy myself. My life 
 is drawing to a close, and I must take advantage of 
 that ! Drink, Tarifena, drink, and laugh, and dance, 
 and twirl about. And tell me of your merry, youthful 
 days something that will cheer me, something to fire 
 my blood, which I now feel turning cold. Laughter, 
 orgies, dances, loves something that may shake my 
 nerves, which I now feel to be growing torpid. Come, 
 Tarifena, give me life, for I am young, and I wish to 
 live. 
 
 JUAN. No more, no more I cannot see this. I 
 cannot hear this. 
 
 DOL. Oh, God ! 
 
 JUAN (rushes away from the others and approaches 
 PACA, seizing her by an arm}. Go ! 
 
 LAZ. (holding her also). She shall not go. 
 
 JUAN. I command it. 
 
 LAZ. And I also. 
 
 JUAN (to PACA). By the salvation of my soul, if 
 you don't go, I shall throw you from that balcony into 
 the river. Look, you don't know yet what I am. 
 Quick ! 
 
 LAZ. (fiercely). I have said no ! Do you take a 
 * e light in tormenting me ?
 
 128 THE SON OF DON JUAN. 
 
 JUAN {falling on his knees at the feet of his son}. 
 Lazarus, for the love of God let this woman go away. 
 
 LAZ. Poor man ! Ah ! those white hairs. (Fondling 
 them.} And he is weeping. Poor dear father ! Well ! 
 you now see how grieved he is. Go away, woman, go 
 away since it must be so. 
 
 PACA withdraws. 
 
 JUAN. Oh my Lazarus my happiness my chas- 
 tisement ! 
 
 LAZ. I don't want to chastise you ; I don't want to 
 chastise anybody. What I desire is that we should 
 all be merry. Come, woman, you now see that nobody 
 wants you ; go away. Have you not heard ? 
 
 PACA. First of all, I have to tell what those people 
 (pointing to the cabinet} are saying ; you ordered me. 
 
 LAZ. (in astonishment}. I ? 
 
 JUAN (rises}. What do they say ? 
 
 They all surround PACA. 
 
 PACA. Wicked things. That they won't let these 
 two be married. 
 
 CAR. My God ! 
 
 JUAN. Why ? Speak ! 
 
 DOL. Quiet! 
 
 JUAN. Say it low ! 
 
 PACA. Because the senorito is about to have his last 
 attack, and all will be at an end with him ; and you 
 (to CARMEN) your father is now going to take you 
 away. 
 
 DOL. Ah ! (runs to embrace her son, who has fol- 
 lowed with his gaze the group.} 
 
 CAR. (desperately). No ! I with him for ever. 
 
 JUAN (rushing to the cabinet}. Bermudez ! Here I 
 
 PACA (aside}. It's well that they should know it.
 
 THE SON OF DON JUAN. 129 
 
 Enter BERMUDEZ, DON TIMOTEO and JAVIER. 
 JUAN. Bermudez save my son and demand of me 
 my life, my soul all that you wish what shall I not 
 give you? but save my Lazarus. 
 
 DOLORES runs to meet BERMUDEZ ; CARMEN alone 
 remains with LAZARUS. 
 
 DOL. Bermudez, one hope ! One hope ! 
 BERMUDEZ, followed by DOLORES and DON JUAN, 
 approaches LAZARUS. TlMOTEO advances towards 
 CARMEN. JAVIER stands apart. 
 
 TIM. Come, Carmen ; my daughter, come. It is 
 getting late. 
 
 CAR. No. With him ; I'll not leave him so. 
 
 TIM. It is necessary for heaven's sake, girl. 
 (Separating her from LAZARUS.) 
 
 CAR. Lazarus, they are separating us. 
 
 LAZ. (gathering himself together with a supreme 
 effort.} Who? That old man!' That scum of the 
 earth ! Away, scum, to your heap of refuse ! I pass 
 on to life ! I pass on to love ! Carmen, to my arms ! 
 (Rushes towards her, catches her, and takes her to the 
 balcony. The others follow them.} Look, what an 
 horizon ! What splendour ! Come, melt your soul 
 in mine, enfold your body round mine, and let us 
 mingle ourselves among yonder rays of light. Yes, 
 come, Carmen, come ! 
 
 They are separated by force, and LAZARUS is drawn 
 away, and falls at last on the sofa. 
 
 BERM. The last ray of light ! 
 
 The characters are disposed of in the following 
 manner: LAZARUS on the sofa to the right. 
 DON JUAN, staggering, falls on the sofa to the 
 left, hiding his face in his hands; as if to help
 
 130 THE SON OF DON JUAN. 
 
 hint) PACA stations herself at his side. Toward 
 the left TIMOTEO and CARMEN ; JAVIER with 
 DOLORES in the centre. BERMUDEZ stands 
 contemplating LAZARUS. A pause. LAZARUS is 
 motionless. 
 
 JAV. (in a low voice to BERMUDEZ). Is he dead ? 
 
 BERM. Would to God he were ! 
 
 JUAN. How many mornings have I myself awakened 
 here ! 
 
 PACA. True ! 
 
 JUAN. Silence ! And my Lazarus is not awaking. 
 
 DOL. (to BERMUDEZ). I have nothing left in life but 
 Lazarus. In God's name, Bermudez, think of that. 
 
 TIM. Carmen ! 
 
 CAR. It is useless, father. I shall not leave him. 
 
 BERM. Silence silence ! The day breaks the sun 
 
 begins to rise Lazarus seems to be returning to 
 
 : himself. He lifts his gaze he fixes it on the light 
 
 which springs forth. Let us listen let us listen ! 
 
 This is decisive ! 
 
 JUAN. To hear what he will say? Will he call 
 upon me? 
 
 DOL. It is on me that he will call. 
 
 CAR. He will not call on me ! 
 
 LAZ. (with his face towards the rising sun}. Mother ! 
 
 DOL. (running to him and embracing hint). Lazarus ! 
 
 LAZ. (pointing to the sun). How beautiful ! 
 
 JUAN (falling on his knees by the sofa and raising 
 his arms : PACA holds him}. Lord ! Lord ! 
 
 DOL. Lazarus ! 
 
 / LAZ. Most beautiful ! most beautiful ! 
 > give me_ the sun ! 
 
 DOL. Ah ! My God ! 
 
 The sun ! the sun ! I want the sun !
 
 THE SON OF DON JUAN. 131 
 
 JUAN (still on his knees j falls against the sofa: 
 P ACA holds hitn). My boy ! 
 
 DOL. (embracing LAZARUS). My darling ! 
 
 CAR. (wildly embracing her father, who subdues 
 her). Lazarus ! My life ! 
 
 BERM. For ever ! 
 
 LAZ. Mother the sun ! the sun ! give me the 
 sun ! (He says this like a child, and with the face of 
 an idiot.} 
 
 JUAN. I also asked for it. Jesus ! my Lazarus, my 
 Lazarus ! 
 
 LAZ. Give me the sun ! Mother, mother the sun ! 
 For God's sake for God's sake for God's sake, 
 mother give me the sun ! 
 
 THE END.
 
 tenant 
 
 UNWIN BROTHERS, 
 CHILWORTH AND LONDON.
 
 UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS-URBANA 
 
 30112084202842