ight: I was not a good
fencer. I never dispute the point; so we are excellent friends.

ANA. It is no dishonor to a soldier to be proud of his skill in arms.

DON JUAN. You would rather not meet him, probably.

ANA. How dare you say that?

DON JUAN. Oh, that is the usual feeling here. You may remember that on
earth--though of course we never confessed it--the death of anyone
we knew, even those we liked best, was always mingled with a certain
satisfaction at being finally done with them.

ANA. Monster! Never, never.

DON JUAN. [placidly] I see you recognize the feeling. Yes: a funeral was
always a festivity in black, especially the funeral of a relative. At
all events, family ties are rarely kept up here. Your father is quite
accustomed to this: he will not expect any devotion from you.

ANA. Wretch: I wore mourning for him all my life.

DON JUAN. Yes: it became you. But a life of mourning is one thing: an
eternity of it quite another. Besides, here you are as dead as he. Can
anything be more ridiculous than one dead person mourning for another?
Do not look shocked, my dear Ana; and do not be alarmed: there is plenty
of humbug in hell (indeed there is hardly anything else); but the humbug
of death and age and change is dropped because here WE are all dead and
all eternal. You will pick up our ways soon.

ANA. And will all the men call me their dear Ana?

DON JUAN. No. That was a slip of the tongue. I beg your pardon.

ANA. [almost tenderly] Juan: did you really love me when you behaved so
disgracefully to me?

DON JUAN. [impatiently] Oh, I beg you not to begin talking about love.
Here they talk of nothing else but love--its beauty, its holiness, its
spirituality, its devil knows what!--excuse me; but it does so bore me.
They don't know what they're talking about. I do. They think they have
achieved the perfection of love because they have no bodies. Sheer
imaginative debauchery! Faugh!

ANA. Has even death failed to refine your soul, Juan? Has the terrible
judgment of which my father's statue was the minister taught you no
reverence?

DON JUAN. How is that very flattering statue, by the way? Does it still
come to supper with naughty people and cast them into this bottomless
pit?

ANA. It has been a great expense to me. The boys in the monastery school
would not let it alone: the mischievous ones broke it; and the studious
ones wrote their names on it. Three new noses in two years, and fingers
without