"What is that to me?" cried the proud Veronese, she who had broken the
comfit dish.

"What is that to you?" exclaimed the duke. "With his ducats he is as much a
prince as I am!"

At first Don Juan, swayed by a thousand thoughts, wavered toward many
different resolutions. After having ascertained the amount of the wealth
amassed by his father, he returned in the evening to the death chamber,
his soul puffed up with a horrible egoism. In the apartment he found all
the servants of the household busied in collecting the ornaments for the
bed of state on which "feu monseigneur" would lie to-morrow--a curious
spectacle which all Ferrara would come to admire. Don Juan made a sign and
the servants stopped at once, speechless and trembling.

"Leave me alone," he said in an altered voice, "and do not return until I
go out again."

When the steps of the old servant, who was the last to leave, had died
away on the stone flooring, Don Juan locked the door hastily, and, sure
that he was alone, exclaimed:

"Now, let us try!"

The body of Bartholomeo lay on a long table. To hide the revolting
spectacle of a corpse whose extreme decrepitude and thinness made it look
like a skeleton, the embalmers had drawn a sheet over the body, which
covered all but the head. This mummy-like figure was laid out in the
middle of the room, and the linen, naturally clinging, outlined the form