Don Juan, Cont'd

The legend of Don Juan was invented by a Spanish monk in the 16th Century nominally in order to frighten young profligates into piety. In the original the sensuous, rakehell Don kills the father of Dona Ana, one of the girls he has violated. Later he invites the father's statue to sup with him. The statue comes, demands that Juan repent his many sins. Don Juan refuses, is snatched down into Hell.

Since Don Juan, however sinful, is most attractive character, many an author has used the legend. There are variants by Moliere, Shadwell, Mozart, Merimee Dumas pere, Byron, Balzac, Shaw. Not overanxious to compete with such a talented gallery, yet fascinated by the violent Don, Sylvia Townsend Warner decided to take the matter up where the others had left off--with Don Juan's damnation. And so she wrote After the Death of Don Juan (Viking, $2.50).

Only witness to the Don's descent into Hell was his scalawag servant, Leporello, word was no more trustworthy than his master's. Dona Ana, her suitor Don Ottavio and Leporello set off for Juan's country home, to tell Juan's father of his son's strange death. On the way Leporello disappears. Dona Ana suspects him of having invented the whole story. Sure enough, first Leporello, then Juan himself reappears. It seems that Juan had merely had a bad case of nettle rash, which marred his handsome face, so he had wanted to lie low for a few days.

Beneath this trivial hoax lies a real story, about which Miss Warner is as passionately sincere as Don Juan is insincerely passionate. Last year Miss Warner saw Spain first-hand--as a Loyalist nurse. Without being either obvious or partisan, she plants in her 18th-Century story seeds of 20th-Century violence. She pits the peasants of Tenorio Viejo, who want irrigation for their lands, against the Don, who wants lace for his coats and whose income is peasants' rents. The peasants are lovable, clumsily funny, tragically simple. But there is nothing lovable about Miss Warner's Juan, imperious, selfish, ruthless, clever.

The peasants, of course, are worsted, and the novel ends in a gush of bloodshed. A dying peasant gazes at a map. "So large a country," he says. "And there in the middle of it, like a heart, is Madrid. But our Tenorio Viejo is not marked. I have often looked for it. It is not there, though. It is too small, I suppose. We have lived in a very small place, Diego."

"We have lived in Spain," says Diego.

"Aye."

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