"But do you know what Thought is, Polunin?"
"Yes, indeed I do!"
"Don't smile! Do you not know that Thought kills everything? Reflect, think thrice over what you regard as sacred, and it will be as simple as a glass of lemonade."
"But death?"
"Death is an exit into nothing. I have always that in reserve—when I am heart-broken. For the present I am content to live and thrive."
When the dispute was over, Vera Lvovna said in a low voice, as calm as ever:
"The only tragic thing in life is that there is nothing tragical, while death is just death, when anyone dies physically. A little less metaphysics!"
Kseniya Ippolytovna had been listening, alert and restless.
"But all the same," she answered Vera Lvovna animatedly, "Isn't the absence of tragedy the true tragedy?"
"Yes, that alone."