Vainly did they lock the gates of their patios and put iron bars over the windows; he penetrated everywhere. The Commendatore whom Don Juan killed in a duel about his daughter Doña Anna, was but one of the many whom he had injured, only the Commendatore cursed him, and the curse cleaved to him, although it is not true that as a statue, he invited him to supper, as he does in Mozart’s opera, and was dragged down to hell.
The stage Don Giovanni is a very elegant señor, with fine feathers, bright clothes, golden chains, velvets, and lace; but the real man clothed himself as plainly as his master, Don Pedro, in a dark doublet, with a leather capa, or head-piece, quite innocent of gew-gaws, and as heavy a mantle as a Castilian can wear.
Living in warlike times, when men rapped out their swords on every occasion, Don Juan was ready for whatever adventure might befall, giving no quarter and receiving none; little given to vanity of any sort, or smoothness of speech in the passages of the duelo or on the battle-field, spending his leisure between the dice-box and the wine flagon.
In person he was dark-featured, too bronzed and weather-beaten for actual beauty, but with plenty of that dash and bravery which please a lady’s eye. Careless, remorseless, sensual, neither God nor devil had terrors for him, but he never shed blood wantonly, and was incapable of butchering women, like his master, or of treacherous assassination or murder of any kind.
How he remained in favour so long, spite of his outspoken comments on Don Pedro, was due to his well-tried devotion. His contempt for the whole family of the Padillas was notorious, specially for Don Garcia, whom he qualified as a base flatterer and parasite, ready to sell Don Pedro like Judas Iscariot.
Don Pedro had few friends; revolt and hatred had thinned his party, and the followers of Enrique de Trastamare were continually increased by the horror of some new crime.
Had the king given heed to Don Juan he would never have sacrificed Doña Bianca or the Grand Master Fadique to the jealous fury of Maria de Padilla. Every mishap which had been foretold by Albuquerque and the queen-mother had followed, as was indeed apparent, after these cruel deeds.
At this time his life and his throne were in jeopardy and he knew it. Not only had the death of Blanche moved France to the core and allied Charles V. with Enrique, but it had so profoundly offended the Castilian sense of honour that a formal remonstrance was drawn up by his own nobles, an insult at which his fierce temper flamed out, and but for the certainty of coming war a bloody punishment would have been the result.
“The throne! the throne!” is the war-cry of El Caballero, who, no longer a fugitive, has constituted himself the avenger of the queen; and word has come to Seville that Aragon and Navarre have declared in his favour, as well as many of the cities in old Castile, and that Blanche’s kinsman, the Comte de la Marche, of the royal blood of St. Louis, has joined Du Guesclin and the Grande Compagnie despatched by the King of France, now marching south to join them.
Hitherto prosperous in his wickedness, since Blanche’s death a curse cleaves to Don Pedro. Has he read her letter and does he know that she has summoned him to appear at the heavenly tribunal, where neither lying nor hypocrisy will avail him? Who can say? Dead or alive, Don Pedro is inscrutable.