In spite of every sign of coming dissolution, the most striking thing about the dying face was its incredible power.  It was no ordinary spirit that wrestled there with Death.  The eyes glared with strange fixity of gaze from the cavernous sockets hollowed by disease.  It seemed as if Bartolommeo sought to kill some enemy sitting at the foot of his bed by the intent gaze of dying eyes.  That steady remorseless look was the more appalling because the head that lay upon the pillow was passive and motionless as a skull upon a doctor’s table.  The outlines of the body, revealed by the coverlet, were no less rigid and stiff; he lay there as one dead, save for those eyes.  There was something automatic about the moaning sounds that came from the mouth.  Don Juan felt something like shame that he must be brought thus to his father’s bedside, wearing a courtesan’s bouquet, redolent of the fragrance of the banqueting-chamber and the fumes of wine.

“You were enjoying yourself!” the old man cried as he saw his son.

Even as he spoke the pure high notes of a woman’s voice, sustained by the sound of the viol on which she accompanied her song, rose above the rattle of the storm against the casements, and floated up to the chamber of death.  Don Juan stopped his ears against the barbarous answer to his father’s speech.

“I bear you no grudge, my child,” Bartolommeo went on.

The words were full of kindness, but they hurt Don Juan; he could not pardon this heart-searching goodness on his father’s part.

“What a remorseful memory for me!” he cried, hypocritically.

“Poor Juanino,” the dying man went on, in a smothered voice, “I have always been so kind to you, that you could not surely desire my death?”

“Oh, if it were only possible to keep you here by giving up a part of my own life!” cried Don Juan.

("We can always say this sort of thing,” the spendthrift thought; “it is as if I laid the whole world at my mistress’ feet.”)

The thought had scarcely crossed his mind when the old poodle barked.  Don Juan shivered; the response was so intelligent that he fancied the dog must have understood him.

“I was sure that I could count upon you, my son!” cried the dying man.  “I shall live.  So be it; you shall be satisfied.  I shall live, but without depriving you of a single day of your life.”

“He is raving,” thought Don Juan.  Aloud he added, “Yes, dearest father, yes; you shall live, of course, as long as I live, for your image will be for ever in my heart.”

“It is not that kind of life that I mean,” said the old noble, summoning all his strength to sit up in bed; for a thrill of doubt ran through him, one of those suspicions that come into being under a dying man’s pillow.  “Listen, my son,” he went on, in a voice grown weak with that last effort, “I have no more wish to give up life than you to give up wine and mistresses, horses and hounds, and hawks and gold——­”