“I should say I did! They had poured enough cold water over me all my life.”
They walked beside each other over the narrow path, between graves and crosses. Two blue beams fell from the author’s eyes upon the ground and lit the way for the devil. A drizzling rain sprinkled over them, and the wind freely passed between the author’s bare ribs and through his breast where there was no longer a heart.
“We are going to town?” he asked the devil.
“What interests you there?”
“Life, my dear sir,” the author said impassionately.
“What! It still has a meaning for you?”
“Indeed it has!”
“But why?”
“How am I to say it? A man measures all by the quantity of his effort, and if he carries a common stone down from the summit of Ararat, that stone becomes a gem to him.”
“Poor fellow!” smiled the devil.