to kill with his dying look some enemy seated at the foot of his bed.  This gaze, fixed and cold, was made the more appalling by the immobility of the head, which was like a skull standing on a doctor’s table.  The body, clearly outlined by the coverlet, showed that the dying man’s limbs preserved the same rigidity.  All was dead, except the eyes.  There was something mechanical in the sounds which came from the mouth.  Don Juan felt a certain shame at having come to the deathbed of his father with a courtesan’s bouquet on his breast, bringing with him the odors of a banquet and the fumes of wine.

“You were enjoying yourself!” cried the old man, on seeing his son.

At the same moment the pure, high voice of a singer who entertained the guests, strengthened by the chords of the viol by which she was accompanied, rose above the roar of the storm and penetrated the chamber of death.  Don Juan would gladly have shut out this barbarous confirmation of his father’s words.

Bartholomeo said:  “I do not grudge you your pleasure, my child.”

These words, full of tenderness, pained Don Juan, who could not forgive his father for such goodness.

“What, sorrow for me, father!” he cried.

“Poor Juanino,” answered the dying man, “I have always been so gentle toward you that you could not wish for my death?”

“Oh!” cried Don Juan, “if it were possible to preserve your life by giving you a part of mine!” ("One can always say such things,” thought the spendthrift; “it is as if I offered the world to my mistress.”)

The thought had scarcely passed through his mind when the old spaniel whined.  This intelligent voice made Don Juan tremble.  He believed that the dog understood him.

“I knew that I could count on you, my son,” said the dying man.  “There, you shall be satisfied.  I shall live, but without depriving you of a single day of your life.”

“He raves,” said Don Juan to himself.

Then he said, aloud:  “Yes, my dearest father, you will indeed live as long as I do, for your image will be always in my heart.”

“It is not a question of that sort of life,” said the old nobleman, gathering all his strength to raise himself to a sitting posture, for he was stirred by one of those suspicions which are only born at the bedside of the dying.  “Listen, my son,” he continued in a voice weakened by this last effort.  “I have no more desire to die than you have to give up your lady loves, wine, horses, falcons, hounds and money——­”

“I can well believe it,” thought his son, kneeling beside the pillow and kissing one of Bartholomeo’s cadaverous hands.  “But, father,” he said aloud, “my dear father, we must submit to the will of God!”

“God!  I am also God!” growled the old man.

“Do not blaspheme!” cried the young man, seeing the menacing expression which was overspreading his father’s features.  “Be careful what you say, for you have received extreme unction and I should never be consoled if you were to die in a state of sin.”