"Death?" he echoed, and was as much embarrassed as though asked whether he believed in God. "I don't know. No, I don't think I do. Why should one think of death when one is alive and well?"
Krafft laughed at this, with a pitying irony. "Happy you!" he said. "Happy you!" His voice sank, and he continued almost fearfully: "I have the vision of it before me, always wherever I go. Listen; I will tell you; it is like this." He laid his hand on Maurice's arm, and drew him nearer. "I know—no matter how strong and sound I may be at this moment; no matter how I laugh, or weep, or play the fool; no matter how little thought I give it, or whether I think about it all day long—I know the hour will come, at last, when I shall gasp, choke, grow black in the face, in the vain struggle for another single mouthful of that air which has always been mine at will. And no one will be able to help me; there is no escape from that hour; no power on earth can keep it from me. And it is all a matter of chance when it happens—a great lottery: one draws to-day, one to-morrow; but my turn will surely come, and each day that passes brings me twenty-four hours nearer the end." He drew still closer to Maurice. "Tell me, have you never stood before a doorway—the doorway of some strange house that you have perhaps never consciously gone past before—and waited, with the atrocious curiosity that death and its hideous paraphernalia waken in one, for a coffin to be carried out?—the coffin of an utter stranger, who is of interest to you now, for the first and the last time. And have you not thought to yourself, with a shudder, that some day, in this selfsame way, under the same indifferent sky, among a group of loiterers as idly curious as these, you yourself will be carried out, feet foremost, like a bale of goods, like useless lumber, all will and dignity gone from you, never to enter there again?—there, where all the little human things you have loved, and used, and lived amongst, are lying just as you left 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 suspension bridge, 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. Besides, when sensation had left you—the soul, the spirit, whatever you liked to call it—what did it matter what afterwards became of your body? It was, then, in reality, nothing but lumber, fresh nourishment for the soil; and it was morbid to care so much how it was treated, just because it had once been your tenement, when it was now as worthless as the crab's empty shell.
He stuttered this out piece-wise, in his halting German; then paused, not sure how his companion would take the didactic tone he had fallen into. But Krafft had turned, and was gazing at him, considering him attentively for the first time. When Maurice ceased to speak, he nodded a hasty assent: "Yes, yes, it is quite true. Go on." And as the former, having nothing more to say, was mute, he added: "You are like some one I once knew. He was a great musician. I saw him die; he died by inches; it lasted for months; he could neither die nor live."
"Why do you brood over these things, if you find them so awful? Are you not afraid your nerves will go through with you, and make you do something foolish?" asked Maurice, and was himself astonished at his boldness.
"Of course I am. My life is a perpetual struggle against suicide," answered Krafft.
In the distance, a church-clock struck a quarter to twelve, and it was on Maurice's tongue to suggest that they should move homewards, when, with one of his unexpected transitions, Krafft turned to him and said in a low voice: "What do you say? Shall you and I be friends?"
Maurice hesitated, in some embarrassment. "Why yes, I should be very glad."