"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 body was stretched on a long table. The embalmers
had laid a sheet over it, to hide from all eyes the dreadful
spectacle of a corpse so wasted and shrunken that it seemed like
a skeleton, and only the face was uncovered. This mummy-like
figure lay in the middle of the room. The limp clinging linen
lent itself to the outlines it shrouded--so sharp, bony, and
thin.
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