y
strove to recover their illusion; but they now seemed the emptiest of
inventions: my judgment was not to be corrupted: my brain still said No
on every issue. And whilst I was in the act of framing my excuse to the
lady, Life seized me and threw me into her arms as a sailor throws a
scrap of fish into the mouth of a seabird.

THE STATUE. You might as well have gone without thinking such a lot
about it, Juan. You are like all the clever men: you have more brains
than is good for you.

THE DEVIL. And were you not the happier for the experience, Senor Don
Juan?

DON JUAN. The happier, no: the wiser, yes. That moment introduced me for
the first time to myself, and, through myself, to the world. I saw then
how useless it is to attempt to impose conditions on the irresistible
force of Life; to preach prudence, careful selection, virtue, honor,
chastity--

ANA. Don Juan: a word against chastity is an insult to me.

DON JUAN. I say nothing against your chastity, Senora, since it took the
form of a husband and twelve children. What more could you have done had
you been the most abandoned of women?

ANA. I could have had twelve husbands and no children that's what I
could have done, Juan. And let me tell you that that would have made all
the difference to the earth which I replenished.

THE STATUE. Bravo Ana! Juan: you are floored, quelled, annihilated.

DON JUAN. No; for though that difference is the true essential
difference--Dona Ana has, I admit, gone straight to the real point--yet
it is not a difference of love or chastity, or even constancy; for
twelve children by twelve different husbands would have replenished the
earth perhaps more effectively. Suppose my friend Ottavio had died when
you were thirty, you would never have remained a widow: you were too
beautiful. Suppose the successor of Ottavio had died when you were
forty, you would still have been irresistible; and a woman who marries
twice marries three times if she becomes free to do so. Twelve lawful
children borne by one highly respectable lady to three different fathers
is not impossible nor condemned by public opinion. That such a lady may
be more law abiding than the poor girl whom we used to spurn into the
gutter for bearing one unlawful infant is no doubt true; but dare you
say she is less self-indulgent?

ANA. She is less virtuous: that is enough for me.

DON JUAN. In that case, what is virtue but the Trade Unionism of the
married? Let us face