his palace and rarely went out, and even Don Juan could not intrude into
his father's apartment without first obtaining permission. If this
voluntary recluse came or went in the palace or in the streets of Ferrara
he seemed to be searching for something which he could not find. He walked
dreamily, undecidedly, preoccupied like a man battling with an idea or
with a memory. While the young man gave magnificent entertainments and the
palace re-echoed his mirth, while the horses pawed the ground in the
courtyard and the pages quarreled at their game of dice on the stairs,
Bartholomeo ate seven ounces of bread a day and drank water. If he asked
for a little poultry it was merely that he might give the bones to a black
spaniel, his faithful companion. He never complained of the noise. During
his illness if the blast of horns or the barking of dogs interrupted his
sleep, he only said: "Ah, Don Juan has come home." Never before was so
untroublesome and indulgent a father to be found on this earth;
consequently young Belvidéro, accustomed to treat him without ceremony,
had all the faults of a spoiled child. His attitude toward Bartholomeo was
like that of a capricious woman toward an elderly lover, passing off an
impertinence with a smile, selling his good humor and submitting to be
loved. In calling up the picture of his youth, Don Juan recognized that it
would be difficult to find an instance in which his father's goodness had
failed him. He felt a newborn remorse while he traversed the corridor, and
he very nearly forgave his father for having lived so long. He reverted to
feelings of filial piety, as a thief returns to honesty in the prospect of
enjoying a well-stolen million.

Soon the young man passed into the high, chill rooms of his father's
apartment. After feeling a moist atmosphere and breathing the heavy air
and the musty odor which is given forth by old tapestries and furniture
covered with dust, he found himself in the antique room of the old man, in
front of a sick bed and near a dying fire. A lamp standing on a table of