Now Don Giovanni heard with eyes afire, greedy to know, invaded by a terrible curiosity. These revelations instead of disgusting him, fed his desire. Violetta seemed to him more enticing, even more beautiful; and he felt himself inwardly bitten by a raging jealousy that blended with his grief. Presently the woman appeared in his mind’s eye associated with a certain soft relaxation. That picture made him giddy.
“Oh Dio! Oh Dio! Oh! Oh!” He commenced to weep again. Those present looked at one another and restrained their laughter. In truth the grief of that man; fleshy, bald, deformed, expressed itself so ridiculously that it seemed unreal.
“Go away now!” Don Giovanni blubbered through his tears.
Don Grisostomo Troilo set the example; the others followed him and chattered as they passed down the stairs.
Toward evening the prostrated man revived little by little. A woman’s voice called at his door: “May I come in, Don Giovanni?”
He recognised Rosa Catana’s voice and experienced suddenly an instinctive joy. He ran to let her in. Rosa Catana appeared in the dusk of the room.
“Come in! Come in!” he cried. He made her sit down beside him, had her talk to him, asked her a thousand questions. He seemed to suffer less on hearing that familiar voice in which, under the spell of an illusion, he found some quality of Violetta’s voice. He took her hands and cried:
“You helped her to dress! Did you not?”
He caressed those rugged hands, closing his eyes and wandering slightly in his mind on the subject of those abundant, unbound locks that so many times he had touched with his hands. Rosa at first did not understand. She believed this to be some sudden passion of Don Giovanni, and withdrew her hands gently, while she spoke in an ambiguous way and laughed. But Don Giovanni murmured:
“No, no!... Stay! You combed her, did you not? You bathed her, did you not?”