"But now, I do not laugh!" Kurz protested with wearied eagerness. "Now I come to you. I ask you if you know those things—now?"

"What things, Otto?"

"The things of life. The things of death."

"I know what I always knew," he said slowly. "I know that life is meant to live fully and understandingly and that death is meant to live on; fully and understandingly."

"And—you—do—understand—now?"

"I understand that always."

"You would not be afraid?"

"Of what?"

"Of—death?"

"No."