But on that night he cast around him many a curious look, and examined with as great an attention, one after the other, the several pieces of antique furniture with which his room was furnished, as though it had been the first time that he had seen them; then, in place of sitting down in that ancient arm-chair, which he preferred to all the others on account of its large dimensions, he placed it in front of him, and, sitting down on the most modern of his chairs, he regarded with a questioning curiosity and certain respect that mute witness of an adventure, the mere recital of which had caused so great a trouble in his mind; seeming to ask of it a solution to his doubts and fears. After a long and silent contemplation, he let fall his forehead on his hands, and, plunging his fingers among his hair, whitened rather by sorrow than by age, began to meditate profoundly. The agitation of his mind was so great, and the flow of his thoughts so rapid, that, without knowing it, he began to think aloud. "If what he said were true, if there were something within us that outlived our bodies, I could see thee again, my dearest and best-beloved Gertrude; and I could again find the joys of our too short union, and this time for always, unchanging and eternal! And ought I to repulse that thought through the childish fear of abandoning myself to a false hope? Of these two ideas were it not better to follow that which gives us consolation and causes us to live, rather than that which thickens around us the already too profound shades of life, and changes our grief into despair? What consolation have I ever found in the reason of which I am so proud? None! If pride has withheld my tears before men, yet since twenty years they have flowed on in silence without their source being yet dry. If I have blushed to let my weakness be seen by men, have I not felt it a thousand times within me, implacable, and terrible, before my vain revolts against a destiny that broke my heart and that I was forced to submit to? When beside her death-bed I felt but a sterile despair, when my will, my love, were powerless to retain for a single moment the last sigh of that life that I would have been willing to prolong at the expense of my own days, what have I been able to do? Nothing! not even to die! Since twenty years I implore the oblivion which flies before me! Since twenty years, I recoil before the thought to precipitate myself therein! Is it fear that hinders me? No! I have faced the peril when my duty demanded it, and I would do it again: I have too often seen Death to fear him. The reason is that a secret voice speaks within me higher than all the sophisms of my grief, and tells me that I have not the right to destroy the life which I did not give myself. Yet if there is nothing beyond the tomb, why should I fear it, and what have I to dread from oblivion? Have I not the most absolute right on myself, since all ends but in a dreamless sleep? Is it really a sleep?