If only you had stayed there quietly!

DON JUAN. Your humble servant thanks you for the

pleasure!

I all but died of boredom there. What people!

And what a land! The sky?... A pall of smoke;

The women? Why, I never would exchange -

Mark what I say, my foolish Leporello -

The humblest peasant-girl in Andalusia

For all their leading beauties - that I wouldn't.

At first, indeed, these women took my fancy

With their blue eyes and that white skin of theirs,

Their modesty - but most, their novelty;

But, thank the Lord, I soon had sized them up -

Saw that 'twas sin to deal with them at all,

There isn't any life in them - they're all

But waxen dolls... whereas our girls!... But

hist!

We seem to know this place; you recognize it?

LEPORELLO. HOW could I fail to? I remember well

The convent of St. Anthony. You used

To come on visits here, and I would hold

The horses in this grove; a cursed duty,

I do confess! More pleasantly you spent

Your time here than did I, forsooth.

DON JUAN. (Pensively.) - Poor Inez!

She is no more! And how I did adore her!

LEPORELLO. Inez - the black-eyed girl?... Oh, I re-

member!

For three long months you courted her in vain;

'Twas only through the devil's help you won.

DON JUAN. 'Twas in July... at night. I used to find

Strange pleasure in her melancholy gaze

And in her ashen lips. A curious thing!

But you, it seems, did not consider her