them--the book you laid down, the coat you wore--now all of a greater
worth than you. You are mere dead flesh, and behind the horrid lid lie
stark and cold, with rigid fingers and half-closed eyes, and the chief
desire of every one, even of those you have loved most, is to be rid
of you, to be out of reach of sight and smell of you. And so, after
being carted, and jolted, and unloaded, you will be thrown into a
hole, and your body, ice-cold, and as yielding as meat to the
touch--oh, that awful icy softness!--your flesh will begin to rot, to be
such that not your nearest friend would touch you. God, it is unbearable!"

He wiped his forehead, and Maurice was silent, not knowing what to
say; he felt that such rational arguments as he might be able to
offer, would have little value in the face of this intensely personal
view, which was stammered forth with the bitterness of an accusation.
But as they crossed the suspensionbridge, Krafft stopped, and stood
looking at the water, which glistened in the moonlight like a living
thing.

"No, it is impossible for me to put death out of my mind," he went on.
"And yet, a spring into this silver fire down here would end all that,
and satisfy one's curiosity as well. Why is one not readier to make
the spring?--and what would one's sensations be? The mad rush through
the air--the crash--the sinking in the awful blackness . . ."

"Those of fear and cold. You would wish yourself out again,"
answered Maurice; and as Krafft nodded, without seeming to resent his
tone, he ventured to put forward a few points for the other side of
the question. He suggested that always to be brooding over death
unfitted you for life. Every one had to die when his time came; it was
foolish to look upon your own death as an exception to the rule.