"It needs no potion," she says and raises her right hand. I have never seen such a hand.... It seem to be without bones, formed of the petals of flowers. The hand might seem deformed, dried and yet swollen as with disease, were it not so delicate, so radiant, so lily-like. An unspeakable yearning for this poor, sick hand overcomes me. I want to fall on my knees before it and press my lips to it in adoration. But already the hand lays itself softly upon my hair. Gentle and cool as a flake of snow it rests there. But from moment to moment it waxes heavier until the weight of mountains seems to lie upon my head. I can bear the pressure no longer. I sink ... I sink ... the earth opens.... Darkness is all about me.... Recovering consciousness, I find myself lying in a bed surrounded by impenetrable night. "One of my stupid dreams," I say to myself and grope for the matches on my bed side table to see the time.... But my hand strikes hard against a board that rises diagonally at my shoulder. I grope farther and discover that my couch is surrounded by a cloak of wood. And that cloak is so narrow, so narrow that I can scarcely raise my head a few inches without knocking against it. "Perhaps I am buried," I say to myself. "Then indeed my wish would have fulfilled itself promptly." A fresh softly prickling scent of flowers, as of heather and roses, floats to me. "Aha," I say to myself, "the odour of the funeral flowers. My favourites have been chosen. That was kind of people." And, as I turn my head the cups of flowers nestle soft and cool against my cheek. "You are buried amid roses," I say to myself, "as you always desired." And then I touch my breast to discover what gift has been placed upon my heart. My fingers touch hard, jagged leaves. "What is that?" I ask myself in surprise. And then I laugh shrilly. It is a wreath of laurel leaves which has been pressed with its rough, woodlike leaves between my body and the coffin lid. "Now you have everything that you so ardently desired, you fool of fame," I cry out and a mighty irony takes hold of me. And then I stretch out my legs until my feet reach the end of the coffin, nestle my head amid the flowers, and make ready to enjoy my great peace with all my might. I am not in the least frightened or confounded, for I know that air to breathe will never again be lacking now for I need it no longer. I am dead, properly and honestly dead. Nothing remains now but to flow peacefully and gently into the realm of the unconscious, and to let the dim dream of the All surge over me to eternity. "Good-night, my dear former fellow-creatures," I say and turn contemptuously on my other side. "You can all go to the dickens for all I care." And then I determine to lie still as a mouse and discover whether I cannot find some food for the malice that yet is in me, by listening to man's doings upon the wretched earth above me.