ave
burned through the night struggle with the sunlight.

They had come to offer the customary condolence to the young heir.

"Oho! is poor Don Juan really taking this seriously?" said the Prince in
Brambilla's ear.

"Well, his father was very good," she returned.

But Don Juan's night-thoughts had left such unmistakable traces on his
features, that the crew was awed into silence. The men stood motionless.
The women, with wine-parched lips and cheeks marbled with kisses, knelt
down and began a prayer. Don Juan could scarce help trembling when he
saw splendor and mirth and laughter and song and youth and beauty and
power bowed in reverence before Death. But in those times, in that
adorable Italy of the sixteenth century, religion and revelry went hand
in hand; and religious excess became a sort of debauch, and a debauch a
religious rite!

The Prince grasped Don Juan's hand affectionately, then when all
faces had simultaneously put on the same grimace--half-gloomy,
half-indifferent--the whole masque disappeared, and left the chamber of
death empty. It was like an allegory of life.

As they went down the staircase, the Prince spoke to Rivabarella:
"Now, who would have taken Don Juan's impiety for a boast? He loves his
father."

"Did you see that black dog?" asked La Brambilla.

"He is enormously rich now," sighed Bianca Cavatolino.

"What is that to me?" cried the proud Veronese (she who had crushed the
comfit-box).

"What does it matter to you, forsooth?" cried the Duke. "With his money
he is as much a prince as I am."

At first Don Juan was swayed hither and thither by countless thoughts,
and wavered between two decisions. He took counsel with the gold heaped
up by his father, and returned in the evening to the chamber of death,
his whole soul brimming over with hideous selfishness. He found all his
household busy there. "His lordship" was to lie in state to-morrow; all
Ferrara would flock to behold the wonderful spectacle; and the servants
were busy decking the room and the couch on which the dead man lay. At a
sign from Don Juan all his people stopped, dumfounded and trembling.

"Leave me alone here," he said, and his voice was changed, "and do not
return until I leave the room."

When the footsteps of the old servitor, who was the last to go, echoed
but faintly along the paved gallery, Don Juan hastily locked the door,
and sure that he was quite alone, "Let us try," he said to himself.

Bartolommeo's