“Softly, good master. This is woeful, this is woeful. So please you, gentle statue; nay, I cannot proceed. I have my heart in my mouth. I would I were at home, this master will most completely destroy me.”
“If thou dost hesitate, I will warm this dagger in thy coward’s heart. Now, proceed.”
And he again laughed, still not turning his face to the statue.
“So please you, gentle statue, for I advise me thou art gentle, if thou art stonely—he hath turned his eyes on us: mercy, he hath remarked us.”
“What, thou wilt die, recreant?”
“Master, laugh not. So thou hast thy choice of death, Leporello—’tis more than many a sinner; either by fear or by steel thou fallest. Well, well, if I love blood, I know not my likings. Good, master, good. Most gentle of statues, my master, and I—prythee, mark well, ’tis my master, and not I, good statue. Oh Lord! he hath up and downed his head.”
“Thou art but a pudding, friend Leporello.”
“Granted, I am what I am, yet look, master.”
“And wherefore?”
“The statue, which with his stony head goeth thus, up and down, up and down!”