remain. I am about to be born again."

"The delirium is at its height," said Don Juan to himself.

"I have discovered a means of resuscitation. There, look in the drawer of
the table--you open it by pressing a hidden spring near the griffin."

"I have it, father."

"Good! Now take out a little flask of rock crystal."

"Here it is."

"I have spent twenty years in----"

At this point the old man felt his end approaching, and collected all his
energy to say:

"As soon as I have drawn my last breath rub me with this water and I shall
come to life again."

"There is very little of it," replied the young man.

Bartholomeo was no longer able to speak, but he could still hear and see.
At these words he turned his head toward Don Juan with a violent wrench.
His neck remained twisted like that of a marble statue doomed by the
sculptor's whim to look forever sideways, his staring eyes assumed a
hideous fixity. He was dead, dead in the act of losing his only, his last
illusion. In seeking a shelter in his son's heart he had found a tomb more
hollow than those which men dig for their dead. His hair, too, had risen