Arms and the Woman

"Dan?" said I.

The lids of his eyes rolled wearily back.

"Is there anything I can do for you?"

"Bury me."

It was very sad. "Where?" I asked.

"Did you see the little cemetery on the hill, across the valley? Put

me there. It is a wild, forgotten place. 'Tis only my body. Who

cares what becomes of that? As for the other, the soul, who can say?

I have never been a good man; still, I believe in God. I am tired,

tired and cold. What fancies a man has in death! A moment back I saw

my father. There was a wan, sweet-faced woman standing close beside

him; perhaps my mother. I never saw her before. Ah, me! these

chimeras we set our hearts upon, these worldly hopes! Well, Jack, it's

curtain and no encore. But I am not afraid to die. I have wronged no

man or woman; I have been my own enemy. What shall I say, Jack? Ah,

yes! God have mercy on my soul. And this sudden coldness, this sudden

ease from pain--is death!"

There was a flutter of the eyelids, a sigh, and this poor flotsam, this

drift-wood which had never known a harbor in all its years, this friend

of mine, this inseparable comrade--passed out. He knew all about it

now.

There were hot tears in my eyes as I stood up and gazed down at this

mystery called death. And while I did so, a hand, horny and hard,

closed over mine. The innkeeper, with blinking eyes, stood at my side.

"Ah, Herr," he said, "who would not die like that?"

And we buried him on the hillside, just as the sun swept aside the rosy

curtain of dawn. The wind, laden with fresh morning perfumes, blew up

joyously from the river. From where I stood I could see the drab walls

of the barracks. The windows sparkled and flashed as the gray mists

sailed heavenward and vanished. The hill with its long grasses

resembled a green sea. The thick forests across the river, almost

black at the water's edge, turned a fainter and more delicate hue as

they receded, till, far away, they looked like mottled glass. Only

yesterday he had laughed with me, talked and smoked with me, and now he

was dead. A rage pervaded me. We are puny things, we, who strut the

highways of the world, parading a so-called wisdom. There is only one

philosophy; it is to learn to die.

"Come," said I to the innkeeper; and we went down the hill.