And then the whole, long, horrible dialogue followed.  When the human voices have become silent, the voice of the dead speaks again.  After that first fearful greeting, in which the half-transformed being refuses the earthly nourishment offered him, how strangely and horribly moves the unsteady voice up and down in that singular scale!  He demands speedy repentance; the spirit’s time is short, the way it must travel, long.  And Don Juan, in monstrous obstinacy withstanding the eternal commands, beneath the growing influence of the dark spirits, struggles and writhes and finally perishes, keeping to the last, nevertheless, that wonderful expression of majesty in every gesture.  How heart and flesh tremble with delight and terror!  It is a feeling like that with which one watches the mighty spectacle of an unrestrained force of nature, or the burning of a splendid ship.  In spite of ourselves, we sympathize with the blind majesty, and, shuddering, share the pain of its self-destruction.

The composer paused.  For a while no one could speak.  Finally, the Countess, with voice still unsteady, said “Will you give us some idea of your own feelings when you laid down the pen that night?”

He looked up at her as if waked from a dream, hesitated a moment, and then said, half to the Countess, half to his wife:  “Yes, my head swam at last.  I had written this dialogue and the chorus of demons, in fever heat, by the open window, and, after resting a moment, I rose to go to your room, that I might talk a little and cool off.  But another thought stopped me half way to the door.”  His glance fell, and his voice betrayed his emotion.  “I said to myself, ’If you should die tonight and leave your score just here, could you rest in your grave?’ My eye fell on the wick of the light in my hand and on the mountain of melted wax.  The thought that it suggested was painful.  ‘Then,’ I went on, ’if after this, sooner or later, some one else were to complete the opera, perhaps even an Italian, and found all the numbers but one, up to the seventeenth—­so many sound, ripe fruits, lying ready to his hand in the long grass-if he dreaded the finale, and found, unhoped for, the rocks for its construction close by—­he might well laugh in his sleeve.  Perhaps he would be tempted to rob me of my honor.  He would burn his fingers, though, for I have many a good friend who knows my stamp and would see that I had my rights.’

“Then I thanked God and went back, and thanked your good angel, dear wife, who held his hand so long over your brow, and kept you sleeping so soundly that you could not once call to me.  When at last I did go to bed and you asked me the hour, I told you you were two hours younger than you were, for it was nearly four; and now you will understand why you could not get me to leave the feathers at six, and why you had to dismiss the coach and order it for another day.”

“Certainly,” answered Constanze; “but the sly man must not think that I was so stupid as not to know something of what was going on.  You didn’t need, on that account, to keep your beautiful new numbers all to yourself.”