No More Learning

Our guests usually describe themselves as miserably
poor.

TANNER. Pooh! Miserably poor people don't own motor cars.

MENDOZA. Precisely what we say to them.

TANNER. Treat us well: we shall not prove ungrateful.

STRAKER. No prickly pears and broiled rabbits, you know. Don't tell me
you can't do us a bit better than that if you like.

MENDOZA. Wine, kids, milk, cheese and bread can be procured for ready
money.

STRAKER. [graciously] Now you're talking.

TANNER. Are you all Socialists here, may I ask?

MENDOZA. [repudiating this humiliating misconception] Oh no, no, no:
nothing of the kind, I assure you. We naturally have modern views as to
the justice of the existing distribution of wealth: otherwise we should
lose our self-respect. But nothing that you could take exception to,
except two or three faddists.

TANNER. I had no intention of suggesting anything discreditable. In
fact, I am a bit of a Socialist myself.

STRAKER. [drily] Most rich men are, I notice.

MENDOZA. Quite so. It has reached us, I admit. It is in the air of the
century.

STRAKER. Socialism must be looking up a bit if your chaps are taking to
it.

MENDOZA. That is true, sir. A movement which is confined to philosophers
and honest men can never exercise any real political influence: there
are too few of them. Until a movement shows itself capable of spreading
among brigands, it can never hope for a political majority.

TANNER. But are your brigands any less honest than ordinary citizens?

MENDOZA. Sir: I will be frank with you. Brigandage is abnormal. Abnormal
professions attract two classes: those who are not good enough for
ordinary bourgeois life and those who are too good for it. We are dregs
and scum, sir: the dregs very filthy, the scum very superior.

STRAKER. Take care! some o the dregs'll hear you.

MENDOZA. It does not matter: each brigand thinks himself scum, and likes
to hear the others called dregs.

TANNER. Come! you are a wit. [Mendoza inclines his head, flattered]. May
one ask you a blunt question?

MENDOZA. As blunt as you please.

TANNER. How does it pay a man of your talent to shepherd such a flock as
this on broiled rabbit and prickly pears? I have seen men less gifted,
and I'll swear less honest, supping at the Savoy on foie gras and
champagne.

MENDOZA. Pooh! they have all had their turn at the broiled rabbit, just
as I shall have my turn at the Savoy. Indeed, I have had a turn there
already--as waiter.

TANNER. A waiter! You astonish me!

MENDOZA. [reflectively] Yes: I, Mendoza of the Sierra, was a waiter.
Hence, perhaps, my cosmopolitanism. [With sudden intensity] Shall I tell
you the story of my life?

STRAKER. [apprehensively] If it ain't too long, old chap--

TANNER. [interrupting him] Tsh-sh: you are a Philistine, Henry: you have
no romance in you. [To Mendoza] You interest me extremely, President.
Never mind Henry: he can go to sleep.

MENDOZA. The woman I loved--

STRAKER. Oh, this is a love story, is it? Right you are. Go on: I was
only afraid you were going to talk about yourself.

MENDOZA. Myself! I have thrown myself away for her sake: that is why
I am here. No matter: I count the world well lost for her. She had, I
pledge you my word, the most magnificent head of hair I ever saw. She
had humor; she had intellect; she could cook to perfection; and her
highly strung temperament made her uncertain, incalculable, variable,
capricious, cruel, in a word, enchanting.

STRAKER. A six shillin novel sort o woman, all but the cookin. Er name
was Lady Gladys Plantagenet, wasn't it?

MENDOZA. No, sir: she was not an earl's daughter. Photography,
reproduced by the half-tone process, has made me familiar with the
appearance of the daughters of the English peerage; and I can honestly
say that I would have sold the lot, faces, dowries, clothes, titles, and
all, for a smile from this woman. Yet she was a woman of the people,
a worker: otherwise--let me reciprocate your bluntness--I should have
scorned her.

TANNER. Very properly. And did she respond to your love?

MENDOZA. Should I be here if she did? She objected to marry a Jew.

TANNER. On religious grounds?

MENDOZA. No: she was a freethinker. She said that every Jew considers in
his heart that English people are dirty in their habits.

TANNER. [surprised] Dirty!

MENDOZA. It showed her extraordinary knowledge of the world; for it
is undoubtedly true. Our elaborate sanitary code makes us unduly
contemptuous of the Gentile.

TANNER. Did you ever hear that, Henry?

STRAKER. I've heard my sister say so. She was cook in a Jewish family
once.

MENDOZA. I could not deny it; neither could I eradicate the impression
it made on her mind. I could have got round any other objection; but
no woman can stand a suspicion of indelicacy as to her person. My
entreaties were in vain: she always retorted that she wasn't good enough
for me, and recommended me to marry an accursed barmaid named Rebecca
Lazarus, whom I loathed. I talked of suicide: she offered me a packet
of beetle poison to do it with. I hinted at murder: she went into
hysterics; and as I am a living man I went to America so that she might
sleep without dreaming that I was stealing upstairs to cut her throat.
In America I went out west and fell in with a man who was wanted by the
police for holding up trains. It was he who had the idea of holding up
motors cars--in the South of Europe: a welcome idea to a desperate and
disappointed man. He gave me some valuable introductions to capitalists
of the right sort. I formed a syndicate; and the present enterprise is
the result. I became leader, as the Jew always becomes leader, by his
brains and imagination. But with all my pride of race I would give
everything I possess to be an Englishman. I am like a boy: I cut her
name on the trees and her initials on the sod. When I am alone I lie
down and tear my wretched hair and cry Louisa--

STRAKER. [startled] Louisa!

MENDOZA. It is her name--Louisa--Louisa Straker--

TANNER. Straker!

STRAKER. [scrambling up on his knees most indignantly] Look here: Louisa
Straker is my sister, see? Wot do you mean by gassin about her like
this? Wot she got to do with you?

MENDOZA. A dramatic coincidence! You are Enry, her favorite brother!

STRAKER. Oo are you callin Enry? What call have you to take a liberty
with my name or with hers? For two pins I'd punch your fat ed, so I
would.

MENDOZA. [with grandiose calm] If I let you do it, will you promise to
brag of it afterwards to her? She will be reminded of her Mendoza: that
is all I desire.

TANNER. This is genuine devotion, Henry. You should respect it.

STRAKER. [fiercely] Funk, more likely.

MENDOZA. [springing to his feet] Funk! Young man: I come of a famous
family of fighters; and as your sister well knows, you would have as
much chance against me as a perambulator against your motor car.

STRAKER. [secretly daunted, but rising from his knees with an air of
reckless pugnacity] I ain't afraid of you. With your Louisa! Louisa!
Miss Straker is good enough for you, I should think.

MENDOZA. I wish you could persuade her to think so.

STRAKER. [exasperated] Here--

TANNER. [rising quickly and interposing] Oh come, Henry: even if you
could fight the President you can't fight the whole League of the
Sierra. Sit down again and be friendly. A cat may look at a king; and
even a President of brigands may look at your sister. All this family
pride is really very old fashioned.

STRAKER. [subdued, but grumbling] Let him look at her. But wot does he
mean by makin out that she ever looked at im? [Reluctantly resuming his
couch on the turf] Ear him talk, one ud think she was keepin company
with him. [He turns his back on them and composes himself to sleep].

MENDOZA. [to Tanner, becoming more confidential as he finds himself
virtually alone with a sympathetic listener in the still starlight of
the mountains; for all the rest are asleep by this time] It was just so
with her, sir. Her intellect reached forward into the twentieth century:
her social prejudices and family affections reached back into the dark
ages. Ah, sir, how the words of Shakespear seem to fit every crisis in
our emotions!

I loved Louisa: 40,000 brothers
Could not with all their quantity of love
Make up my sum.

And so on. I forget the rest. Call it madness if you will--infatuation.
I am an able man, a strong man: in ten years I should have owned a
first-class hotel. I met her; and you see! I am a brigand, an outcast.
Even Shakespear cannot do justice to what I feel for Louisa. Let me
read you some lines that I have written about her myself. However slight
their literary merit may be, they express what I feel better than any
casual words can. [He produces a packet of hotel bills scrawled with
manuscript, and kneels at the fire to decipher them, poking it with a
stick to make it glow].

TANNER. [clapping him rudely on the shoulder] Put them in the fire,
President.

MENDOZA. [startled] Eh?

TANNER. You are sacrificing your career to a monomania.

MENDOZA. I know it.

TANNER. No you don't. No man would commit such a crime against himself
if he really knew what he was doing. How can you look round at these
august hills, look up at this divine sky, taste this finely tempered
air, and then talk like a literary hack on a second floor in Bloomsbury?

MENDOZA. [shaking his head] The Sierra is no better than Bloomsbury when
once the novelty has worn off.
Besides, these mountains make you dream
of women--of women with magnificent hair.

TANNER. Of Louisa, in short. They will not make me dream of women, my
friend: I am heartwhole.

MENDOZA. Do not boast until morning, sir. This is a strange country for
dreams.

TANNER. Well, we shall see. Goodnight. [He lies down and composes
himself to sleep].

Mendoza, with a sigh, follows his example; and for a few moments
there is peace in the Sierra. Then Mendoza sits up suddenly and says
pleadingly to Tanner--

MENDOZA. Just allow me to read a few lines before you go to sleep. I
should really like your opinion of them.

TANNER. [drowsily] Go on. I am listening.

MENDOZA. I saw thee first in Whitsun week Louisa, Louisa--

TANNER. [roaring himself] My dear President, Louisa is a very pretty
name; but it really doesn't rhyme well to Whitsun week.

MENDOZA. Of course not. Louisa is not the rhyme, but the refrain.

TANNER. [subsiding] Ah, the refrain. I beg your pardon. Go on.

MENDOZA. Perhaps you do not care for that one: I think you will like
this better. [He recites, in rich soft tones, and to slow time]

Louisa, I love thee.
I love thee, Louisa.
Louisa, Louisa, Louisa, I love thee.
One name and one phrase make my music,
Louisa. Louisa, Louisa, Louisa, I love thee.


Mendoza thy lover,
Thy lover, Mendoza,
Mendoza adoringly lives for Louisa.
There's nothing but that in the world for Mendoza.
Louisa, Louisa, Mendoza adores thee.

[Affected] There is no merit in producing beautiful lines upon such a
name. Louisa is an exquisite name, is it not?

TANNER. [all but asleep, responds with a faint groan].

MENDOZA.

O wert thou, Louisa,
The wife of Mendoza,
Mendoza's Louisa, Louisa Mendoza,
How blest were the life of Louisa's Mendoza!
How painless his longing of love for Louisa!

That is real poetry--from the heart--from the heart of hearts. Don't you
think it will move her?

No answer.

[Resignedly] Asleep, as usual. Doggrel to all the world; heavenly music
to me! Idiot that I am to wear my heart on my sleeve! [He composes
himself to sleep, murmuring] Louisa, I love thee; I love thee, Louisa;
Louisa, Louisa, Louisa, I--

Straker snores; rolls over on his side; and relapses into sleep.
Stillness settles on the Sierra; and the darkness deepens. The fire
has again buried itself in white ash and ceased to glow. The peaks show
unfathomably dark against the starry firmament; but now the stars dim
and vanish; and the sky seems to steal away out of the universe. Instead
of the Sierra there is nothing; omnipresent nothing. No sky, no peaks,
no light, no sound, no time nor space, utter void. Then somewhere
the beginning of a pallor, and with it a faint throbbing buzz as of a
ghostly violoncello palpitating on the same note endlessly. A couple of
ghostly violins presently take advantage of this bass

(a staff of music is supplied here)

and therewith the pallor reveals a man in the void, an incorporeal but
visible man, seated, absurdly enough, on nothing. For a moment he raises
his head as the music passes him by. Then, with a heavy sigh, he droops
in utter dejection; and the violins, discouraged, retrace their melody
in despair and at last give it up, extinguished by wailings from uncanny
wind instruments, thus:--

(more music)

It is all very odd. One recognizes the Mozartian strain; and on this
hint, and by the aid of certain sparkles of violet light in the pallor,
the man's costume explains itself as that of a Spanish nobleman of the
XV-XVI century. Don Juan, of course; but where? why? how? Besides, in
the brief lifting of his face, now hidden by his hat brim, there was
a curious suggestion of Tanner. A more critical, fastidious, handsome
face, paler and colder, without Tanner's impetuous credulity and
enthusiasm, and without a touch of his modern plutocratic vulgarity, but
still a resemblance, even an identity. The name too: Don Juan Tenorio,
John Tanner. Where on earth---or elsewhere--have we got to from the XX
century and the Sierra?

Another pallor in the void, this time not violet, but a disagreeable
smoky yellow. With it, the whisper of a ghostly clarionet turning this
tune into infinite sadness:

(Here there is another musical staff. )

The yellowish pallor moves: there is an old crone wandering in the void,
bent and toothless; draped, as well as one can guess, in the coarse
brown frock of some religious order. She wanders and wanders in her
slow hopeless way, much as a wasp flies in its rapid busy way, until
she blunders against the thing she seeks: companionship. With a sob of
relief the poor old creature clutches at the presence of the man and
addresses him in her dry unlovely voice, which can still express pride
and resolution as well as suffering.

THE OLD WOMAN. Excuse me; but I am so lonely; and this place is so
awful.

DON JUAN. A new comer?

THE OLD WOMAN. Yes: I suppose I died this morning. I confessed; I had
extreme unction; I was in bed with my family about me and my eyes fixed
on the cross. Then it grew dark; and when the light came back it was
this light by which I walk seeing nothing. I have wandered for hours in
horrible loneliness.

DON JUAN. [sighing] Ah! you have not yet lost the sense of time. One
soon does, in eternity.

THE OLD WOMAN. Where are we?

DON JUAN. In hell.

THE OLD WOMAN [proudly] Hell! I in hell! How dare you?

DON JUAN. [unimpressed] Why not, Senora?

THE OLD WOMAN. You do not know to whom you are speaking. I am a lady,
and a faithful daughter of the Church.

DON JUAN. I do not doubt it.

THE OLD WOMAN. But how then can I be in hell? Purgatory, perhaps: I have
not been perfect: who has? But hell! oh, you are lying.

DON JUAN. Hell, Senora, I assure you; hell at its best that is, its most
solitary--though perhaps you would prefer company.

THE OLD WOMAN. But I have sincerely repented; I have confessed.

DON JUAN. How much?

THE OLD WOMAN. More sins than I really committed. I loved confession.

DON JUAN. Ah, that is perhaps as bad as confessing too little. At all
events, Senora, whether by oversight or intention, you are certainly
damned, like myself; and there is nothing for it now but to make the
best of it.

THE OLD WOMAN [indignantly] Oh! and I might have been so much wickeder!
All my good deeds wasted! It is unjust.

DON JUAN. No: you were fully and clearly warned. For your bad deeds,
vicarious atonement, mercy without justice. For your good deeds, justice
without mercy. We have many good people here.

THE OLD WOMAN. Were you a good man?

DON JUAN. I was a murderer.

THE OLD WOMAN. A murderer! Oh, how dare they send me to herd with
murderers! I was not as bad as that: I was a good woman. There is some
mistake: where can I have it set right?

DON JUAN. I do not know whether mistakes can be corrected here. Probably
they will not admit a mistake even if they have made one.

THE OLD WOMAN. But whom can I ask?

DON JUAN. I should ask the Devil, Senora: he understands the ways of
this place, which is more than I ever could.

THE OLD WOMAN. The Devil! I speak to the Devil!

DON JUAN. In hell, Senora, the Devil is the leader of the best society.

THE OLD WOMAN. I tell you, wretch, I know I am not in hell.

DON JUAN. How do you know?

THE OLD WOMAN. Because I feel no pain.

DON JUAN. Oh, then there is no mistake: you are intentionally damned.

THE OLD WOMAN. Why do you say that?

DON JUAN. Because hell, Senora, is a place for the wicked. The wicked
are quite comfortable in it: it was made for them. You tell me you feel
no pain. I conclude you are one of those for whom Hell exists.

THE OLD WOMAN. Do you feel no pain?

DON JUAN. I am not one of the wicked, Senora; therefore it bores me,
bores me beyond description, beyond belief.

THE OLD WOMAN. Not one of the wicked! You said you were a murderer.

DON JUAN. Only a duel. I ran my sword through an old man who was trying
to run his through me.

THE OLD WOMAN. If you were a gentleman, that was not a murder.

DON JUAN. The old man called it murder, because he was, he said,
defending his daughter's honor. By this he meant that because I
foolishly fell in love with her and told her so, she screamed; and he
tried to assassinate me after calling me insulting names.

THE OLD WOMAN. You were like all men. Libertines and murderers all, all,
all!

DON JUAN. And yet we meet here, dear lady.

THE OLD WOMAN. Listen to me. My father was slain by just such a wretch
as you, in just such a duel, for just such a cause. I screamed: it was
my duty. My father drew on my assailant: his honor demanded it. He fell:
that was the reward of honor. I am here: in hell, you tell me that is
the reward of duty. Is there justice in heaven?

DON JUAN. No; but there is justice in hell: heaven is far above such
idle human personalities. You will be welcome in hell, Senora. Hell
is the home of honor, duty, justice, and the rest of the seven deadly
virtues. All the wickedness on earth is done in their name: where else
but in hell should they have their reward? Have I not told you that the
truly damned are those who are happy in hell?

THE OLD WOMAN. And are you happy here?

DON JUAN. [Springing to his feet] No; and that is the enigma on which I
ponder in darkness.