As an eye-witness, I can testify that in the same moment that he uttered these words he turned pale, stood up from the table, and with a gesture of disgust pointed to something on his plate. It was a white maggot crawling along a sardine.
The next day my friend is obliged to break off his evening meal because he finds a piece of chicken surrounded by white maggots. He cannot eat although he is ravenously hungry, and becomes alarmed, but only for a moment.
"What does it mean? What does it mean?" he says.
"One should not speak ill of the dead. They revenge themselves."
"The dead? But they are dead!"
"Exactly. And therefore they are more alive than the living."
My friend had, as a matter of fact, accustomed himself to speak openly of the weaknesses of the deceased, who, in spite of all, had been a good friend to him.
Some days later, as we sat at table in the verandah of a garden-restaurant, one of the guests exclaimed, "Look at that rat! What a big fellow!"
No one had seen it, and they laughed at the visionary.
"Wait a minute!" he said, "you will soon see. It is there under the planks!"