Don Juan Tenorio

The second part of the play begins five years after the events of that night. A sculptor adds the finishing touches to a pantheon of statues. He is interrupted at his labors by a masked man who claims to have been away from Spain for several years, and who seeks to know the story behind the pantheon. The sculptor reveals that, on his deathbed, Don Diego Tenorio ordered his palace razed and a cemetery built for the victims of his wicked son, Don Juan. Warming to his theme, the sculptor displays to the stranger all of his statues, including that of Doña Inés, who died in her convent after Don Juan abandoned her. The masked man gives the sculptor a purse of gold to reward him for the beauty of his labors, then reveals himself as Don Juan and orders the sculptor to leave the grounds.

Kneeling before Doña Inés’s monument in the midsummer night, Don Juan recalls his lost love and near-redemption, and prays wistfully to her spirit to ask God’s mercy for him:

Oh Dona Ines, my life itself! If that voice I babble of is the last sigh, above, of your eternal farewell; if that voice from your very self reaches the farthest sky, and there is a God on high, with stars on either hand, tell him to gaze at Don Juan, by your tomb, and my weeping eyes (92).

Suddenly, the statue disappears, and Don Juan finds himself speaking to the ghost of Doña Inés, who tells him she has made a bargain with God either to bring Don Juan’s soul back to heaven with her or to be damned with him for all eternity. The choice is to be Don Juan’s and he must decide by dawn.

After Dona Inés’s spirit departs, Don Juan questions what he has seen and heard. Her statue is missing. He also expresses doubt that his years of sin and depravity could ever be forgiven by God. Sensing that the pantheon statues have turned towards him, Don Juan shouts his defiance at them, attracting the attention of two passers-by: Don Rafael de Avellaneda and Captain Centellas, who are drinking companions from his days in Seville. The three men renew their acquaintance. Don Juan invites his friends to dine with him, then brashly extends the same invitation to the statue of Don Gonzalo, announcing that only his late enemy’s presence at his table will convince him of an afterlife. Avellaneda and Centellas express unease at such foolhardiness, but Don Juan declares that the dead do not frighten him.

While drinking and dining at Don Juan’s house, the trio hear increasingly loud knocks upon the doors. After Don Juan bolts the door, the statue of Don Gonzalo comes through the door without opening it. Avellaneda and Centellas faint, leaving Don Juan alone with his onetime enemy, who informs Don Juan that he will die the next day and that the fate of his soul hangs in the balance. Don Gonzalo then invites Don Juan to come and make his choice to repent or be damned beside Don Gonzalo’s tomb, subsequently disappearing through the wall. Still plagued by doubts, Don Juan attempts to dismiss Don Gonzalo’s visitation as trickery, even after Doña Inés’s shade reappears to plead with him once more. Rousing his unconscious friends, Don Juan accuses them of staging the visitation; they, in turn, accuse him of drugging them, and challenges to a duel are issued. Captain Centellas kills Don Juan outside his new home (as explained by the statue of Doña Inés’s father, Comendador Don Gonzalo).

Early the next morning, Don Juan returns to the cemetery, where the statues of Dona Inés and Don Gonzalo are both missing. His knock upon Don Gonzalo’s tomb transforms it into a banquet table that horribly mimics his own of the previous night. Snakes, bones, and ashes are served as dishes, goblets burn with fire, and ghostly guests sit around the table. Don Gonzalo’s statue again attempts to tell Don Juan of the power of repentance, but the young man remains skeptical, even after learning that his earthly form was slain in the duel with his friends and is now being prepared for burial. As the funeral procession approaches the cemetery, Don Gonzalo takes hold of Don Juan’s hand through trickery, then prepares to drag him off to hell. Frantic, Don Juan finally prays for divine forgiveness, stretching out his free hand to heaven: “Holy God, I believe in You: may it be though my sins are mighty, I admit, that your mercy indeed is infinite […] Lord, have mercy on me!” (117) The tomb of Doña Inés opens, and her shade emerges to take his outstretched hand. Don Gonzalo and the other phantoms vanish as Dona Inés’s shade assures Don Juan of his salvation. They sink together onto a bed of flowers scattered by angels, and their joined souls, in the form of flames, mount to heaven as the play ends.