Without looking up he pressed the firm hand to feel the attachment with a living being, and he imagined that he observed, how powers were transferred to him through the frailer nerve currents fastening onto the stronger.
"How is it with you?" he heard the preacher's voice above his head.
"If thou wert a woman instead, I should live again, for woman is man's root in the earth," answered the sick man, using thou for the first time to his old comrade.
"Thank fortune, that you have lost the rotten root!"
"Without root we cannot grow and bloom."
"But with such a woman, Borg!"
"Such a one? Do you know who she was? I have never found out."
"Yes, then you only need to know, that she was such a one, that a man never marries. But now she is engaged anyhow...."
"To him?"
"To him! It was in yesterday's paper."