A monologue from the play by Moliere
NOTE: This monologue is reprinted from The Dramatic Works of Moliere, Vol. II. Ed. Charles Heron Wall. London: George Bell & Sons, 1898.
SGANARELLE: If you knew the man as I do, you would find it no hard matter to believe. I have no proof as yet. You know that I was ordered to start before him, and we have had no talk together since his arrival; but it is as a kind of warning that I tell you, inter nos, that you see in Don Juan, my master, one of the greatest scoundrels that ever trod the earth; a madman, a dog, a demon, a Turk, a heretic who believes neither in heaven, saints, God, nor devil; who spends his life like a regular brute, an epicurean hog; a true Sardanapalus, who shuts up his ears against all the admonitions that can be made to him, and who laughs at everything we believe in. You say that he has married your mistress; believe me, in order to satisfy his passion, he would have done more, and married along with her not only yourself, but her dog and her cat into the bargain. A marriage is nothing to him: it is the grand snare he makes use of to catch the fair sex. He is a wholesale marriage-monger; gentlewomen, young girls, middle-class women, peasant lasses, nothing is either too hot or too cold for him; and if I were to tell you the names of all those he has married in different places, the chapter would last from now till midnight. You seem surprised, and you grow pale; yet this is but a mere outline of the man, and to make a finished portrait we should require many more vigorous touches. Let it be sufficient that the wrath of Heaven must sooner or later make an end of him. He cannot escape; and it would be better for me to belong to the devil than to him. I am the witness of so much evil that I could wish him to be I don’t know where. But if a great lord is also a wicked man, it is a terrible thing. I must be faithful to him, whatever I may think; in me fear takes the place of zeal, curbs my feelings, and often compels me to applaud what I most detest.– Here he is, coming for a walk in this palace; let us part. But, listen: I have told you this in all frankness, and it has slipped rather quickly out of my mouth; but, if anything of what I have said should reach his ears, I would stoutly maintain that you have told a lie.
