"He might have lived a hundred years longer!" he cried involuntarily when,
led in front of his father by some diabolical influence, he contemplated
the luminous spark.

Suddenly the intelligent eye closed, and then opened again abruptly, as if
assenting. If a voice had cried, "Yes," Don Juan could not have been more
startled.

"What is to be done?" he thought

He had the courage to try to close this white eyelid, but his efforts were
in vain.

"Shall I crush it out? Perhaps that would be parricide?" he asked himself.

"Yes," said the eye, by means of an ironical wink.

"Ah!" cried Don Juan, "there is sorcery in it!"

He approached the eye to crush it. A large tear rolled down the hollow
cheek of the corpse and fell on Belvidéro's hand.

"It is scalding!" he cried, sitting down.

This struggle had exhausted him, as if, like Jacob, he had battled with an
angel.

At last he arose, saying: "So long as there is no blood--"

Then, collecting all the courage needed for the cowardly act, he crushed