from Canto I

171

“Pray, keep your nonsense for some luckier night—
     Who can have put my master in this mood?
What will become on’t?—I’m in such a fright,
     The devil’s in the urchin, and no good—
Is this a time for giggling? this a plight?
     Why, don’t you know that it may end in blood?
You’ll lose your life, and I shall lose my place,
My mistress all, for that half-girlish face.

172

“Had it but been for a stout cavalier
     Of twenty-five or thirty—(Come, make haste)
But for a child, what piece of work is here!
     (I really, madam, wonder at your taste—
Come, sir, get in)—my master must be near.
     There, for the present, at the least he’s fast,
And, if we can but till the morning keep
Our counsel—(Juan, mind, you must not sleep.)”

173

Now, Don Alfonso entering, but alone,
     Closed the oration of the trusty maid:
She loiter’d, and he told her to be gone,
    An order somewhat sullenly obey’d;
However, present remedy was none,
     And no great good seem’d answer’d if she staid:
Regarding both with slow and sidelong view,
She snuff’d the candle, curtsied, and withdrew.

174

Alfonso paused a minute—then begun
     Some strange excuses for his late proceeding;
He would not justify what he had done,
     To say the best, it was extreme ill-breeding;
But there were ample reasons for it, none
     Of which he specified in this his pleading:
His speech was a fine sample, on the whole,
Of rhetoric, which the learn’d call “rigmarole.”

175

Julia said nought; though all the while there rose
     A ready answer, which at once enables
A matron, who her husband’s foible knows,
     By a few timely words to turn the tables,
Which if it does not silence still must pose,
     Even if it should comprise a pack of fables;
‘Tis to retort with firmness, and when he
Suspects with one, do you reproach with three.

176

Julia, in fact, had tolerable grounds,
     Alfonso’s loves with Inez were well known;
But whether ‘twas that one’s own guilt confounds,
     But that can’t be, as has been often shown,
A lady with apologies abounds;
     It might be that her silence sprang alone
From delicacy to Don Juan’s ear,
To whom she knew his mother’s fame was dear.

177

There might be one more motive, which makes two,
     Alfonso ne’er to Juan had alluded,
Mention’d his jealousy, but never who
     Had been the happy lover, he concluded,
Conceal’d amongst his premises; ‘tis true,
     His mind the more o’er this its mystery brooded;
To speak of Inez now were, one may say,
Like throwing Juan in Alfonso’s way.

178

A hint, in tender cases, is enough;
     Silence is best, besides there is a tact
(That modern phrase appears to me sad stuff,
     But it will serve to keep my verse compact)
Which keeps, when push’d by questions rather rough,
     A lady always distant from the fact—
The charming creatures lie with such a grace,
There’s nothing so becoming to the face.

179

They blush, and we believe them; at least I
     Have always done so; ‘tis of no great use,
In any case, attempting a reply,
     For then their eloquence grows quite profuse;
And when at length they’re out of breath, they sigh,
     And cast their languid eyes down, and let loose
A tear or two, and then we make it up;
And then—and then—and then—sit down and sup.

180

Alfonso closed his speech, and begg’d her pardon,
     Which Julia half withheld, and then half granted,
And laid conditions, he thought, very hard on,
     Denying several little things he wanted:
He stood like Adam lingering near his garden,
    With useless penitence perplex’d and haunted,
Beseeching she no further would refuse,
When lo! he stumbled o’er a pair of shoes.