Bitterness? Of course.
Yet, despite the fear and bitterness, the window held him with the scene it framed.
Earth and sky and water, he thought. I am one with them. Death has made me one with them. For death brings one back to the elementals, to the soil and trees, to the clouds and sky and the sun dying in the welter of its blood in the crimson west.
This is the price we pay, he thought, that the race must pay, for its life eternal—that we may not be able to assess in their true value the things that should be dearest to us; for a thing that has no ending, a thing that goes on forever, must have decreas-ing value.
Rationalization, he accused himself. Of course, you’re rationalizing. You want another hundred years as badly as you ever did. You want a chance at immortality. But you can’t have it and you trade eternal life for a sunset seen across a lake and it is well you can. It is a blessing that you can.
The senator made a rasping sound within his throat.
Behind him the telephone came to sudden life and he swung around. It chirred at him again. Feet pattered down the hall and the senator called out: “I’ll get it, Otto.”
He lifted the receiver. “New York calling,” said the operator. “Senator Leonard, please.”
“This is Leonard.”
Another voice broke in. “Senator, this is Gibbs.”