"I am a great sinner.
All my life long, however, I have thought of my death. I was once
the friend of the great Pope Julius II.; and that illustrious
Pontiff, fearing lest the excessive excitability of my senses
should entangle me in mortal sin between the moment of my death
and the time of my anointing with the holy oil, gave me a flask
that contains a little of the holy water that once issued from
the rock in the wilderness. I have kept the secret of this
squandering of a treasure belonging to Holy Church, but I am
permitted to reveal the mystery _in articulo mortis_ to my son.
You will find the flask in a drawer in that Gothic table that
always stands by the head of the bed. . . . The precious little
crystal flask may be of use yet again for you, dearest Felipe.
Will you swear to me, by your salvation, to carry out my
instructions faithfully?"
Felipe looked at his father, and Don Juan was too deeply learned
in the lore of the human countenance not to die in peace with
that look as his warrant, as his own father had died in despair
at meeting the expression in his son's eyes.
"You deserved to have a better father," Don Juan went on. "I dare
to confess, my child, that while the reverend Abbot of San-Lucar
was administering the Viaticum I was thinking of the
incompatibility of the co-existence of two powers so infinite as
God and the Devil----"
"Oh, father!"
"And I said to myself, when Satan makes his peace he ought surely
to stipulate for the pardon of his followers, or he will be the
veriest scoundrel.
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