The Elixir of Life | Page 6

all the faults of a spoiled child. He treated old
Bartolommeo as a wilful courtesan treats an elderly adorer; buying
indemnity for insolence with a smile, selling good-humor, submitting
to be loved.
Don Juan, beholding scene after scene of his younger years, saw that it
would be a difficult task to find his father's indulgence at fault. Some
new-born remorse stirred the depths of his heart; he felt almost ready to
forgive this father now about to die for having lived so long. He had an
accession of filial piety, like a thief's return in thought to honesty at the
prospect of a million adroitly stolen.
Before long Don Juan had crossed the lofty, chilly suite of rooms in
which his father lived; the penetrating influences of the damp close air,
the mustiness diffused by old tapestries and presses thickly covered
with dust had passed into him, and now he stood in the old man's
antiquated room, in the repulsive presence of the deathbed, beside a
dying fire. A flickering lamp on a Gothic table sent broad uncertain
shafts of light, fainter or brighter, across the bed, so that the dying
man's face seemed to wear a different look at every moment. The bitter
wind whistled through the crannies of the ill-fitting casements; there
was a smothered sound of snow lashing the windows. The harsh
contrast of these sights and sounds with the scenes which Don Juan had
just quitted was so sudden that he could not help shuddering. He turned
cold as he came towards the bed; the lamp flared in a sudden vehement
gust of wind and lighted up his father's face; the features were wasted
and distorted; the skin that cleaved to their bony outlines had taken wan
livid hues, all the more ghastly by force of contrast with the white
pillows on which he lay. The muscles about the toothless mouth had
contracted with pain and drawn apart the lips; the moans that issued
between them with appalling energy found an accompaniment in the
howling of the storm without.
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