To this merry pair enters Elvira. She has overcome her love, and intends entering a cloister, but wishes to make one more effort to bring Don Giovanni to repentance; but her representation being met only with easy contempt, she angrily leaves him. She is heard to utter a shriek without. Leporello hastens after her, and returns in horror: the statue of the Commendatore is at the door; it knocks, and Don Giovanni has to go himself to open it, and to conduct his marble guest to a seat. The statue rejects all hospitality, and asks Don Giovanni if he is prepared to return the visit; on his answering in the affirmative, he grasps him by the hand, and calls upon him to repent. Don Giovanni repeatedly and defiantly refuses, and the statue leaves him; night comes on, flames burst from the earth, invisible spirit voices are heard, demons surround Don Giovanni, who sinks into the abyss. Don Ottavio and Donna Anna, Elvira, Masetto and Zerlina enter to drag the offender to justice, but find that human revenge has been anticipated; Leporello, who has witnessed the dreadful scene with every sign of horror, relates his master's fearful end. Relieved from anxiety, and restored to their natural relations, they unite in the words of the "old song"-- "Questo è il fin di chi fa mal, E de' perfidi la morte Alla vita è sempre ugual!" No doubt the serious moral appended to the gay and easygoing tone of the opera was a reminiscence of the custom of considering the piece, on account of its ready practical application, as a sort of religious drama; the music takes the same tone towards the end. We can scarcely conceive that it was with a view to the moral effect alone that Da Ponte so contrived the plot that Don Giovanni should fail in each {GERMAN ADAPTATIONS.} (167)