DON JUAN
A monologue from the
play by Molière
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NOTE: This monologue is reprinted
from The Dramatic Works of Molière, Vol. II. Ed.
Charles Heron Wall. London: George Bell & Sons, 1898. |
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SGANARELLE: If you knew the man as I do, you would
find it no hard matter to believe. I have no proof as yet. You
know that I was ordered to start before him, and we have had
no talk together since his arrival; but it is as a kind of warning
that I tell you, inter nos, that you see in Don Juan,
my master, one of the greatest scoundrels that ever trod the
earth; a madman, a dog, a demon, a Turk, a heretic who believes
neither in heaven, saints, God, nor devil; who spends his life
like a regular brute, an epicurean hog; a true Sardanapalus,
who shuts up his ears against all the admonitions that can be
made to him, and who laughs at everything we believe in. You
say that he has married your mistress; believe me, in order to
satisfy his passion, he would have done more, and married along
with her not only yourself, but her dog and her cat into the
bargain. A marriage is nothing to him: it is the grand snare
he makes use of to catch the fair sex. He is a wholesale marriage-monger;
gentlewomen, young girls, middle-class women, peasant lasses,
nothing is either too hot or too cold for him; and if I were
to tell you the names of all those he has married in different
places, the chapter would last from now till midnight. You seem
surprised, and you grow pale; yet this is but a mere outline
of the man, and to make a finished portrait we should require
many more vigorous touches. Let it be sufficient that the wrath
of Heaven must sooner or later make an end of him. He cannot
escape; and it would be better for me to belong to the devil
than to him. I am the witness of so much evil that I could wish
him to be I don't know where. But if a great lord is also a wicked
man, it is a terrible thing. I must be faithful to him, whatever
I may think; in me fear takes the place of zeal, curbs my feelings,
and often compels me to applaud what I most detest.-- Here he
is, coming for a walk in this palace; let us part. But, listen:
I have told you this in all frankness, and it has slipped rather
quickly out of my mouth; but, if anything of what I have said
should reach his ears, I would stoutly maintain that you have
told a lie.
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