The same place has been chosen by Don Alvaro to conceal Seraphine, who is the beautiful lady who has attracted the prince’s attention.
Don Juan repairs to the appointed spot, and erects his easel near a window, through the blinds of which he can see, unnoticed, the fair one.
The artist discovers, with feelings which can be imagined, his wife asleep in the garden. She murmurs words which prove her innocence. But this cannot save her; she must be sacrificed to remove the stain on her husband’s honor.
Don Juan expresses his feelings in a most powerful soliloquy, when Alvaro enters and embraces the sleeping Seraphine. At that instant two shots are heard, and the innocent and guilty fall bleeding to the ground.
The auto founded on the above play is, in the opinion of no less a critic than Wilhelm Val Schmidt, the first of its class, and withal much less technical than is usual with these plays.
The dramatis personæ include the Artist, the World, Love, Lucifer, Sin, Grace, Knowledge, Nature (i.e., human nature at first in a state of innocence), Innocence, and the Will (i.e., free-will).
The first car represents a dragon, which opens and discloses Lucifer, whose first speech proves the trite remark about the devil quoting Scripture; for he immediately proceeds to cite Jeremias and David, who alluded to him as the dragon.
He then summons Sin, and repeats to her his partly-known history, which contains some singular ideas.
He was the favorite of the Father in his former home, where he saw, before the original existed, the portrait of so rare a beauty that, inflamed with love, and to prevent the Prince from marrying her, he rebelled, and, placing himself at the head of the other discontented spirits, was defeated and doomed to perpetual exile and darkness.
So far Sin is acquainted with the story; but from this point all is new to her.