They belonged to two men to whom I had always been united by bonds of the tenderest sympathy and whom I was proud to call my friends. They had always assured me of the high value which they set upon me and that their blame--with which they had often driven me to secret despair--proceeded wholly from helpful and unselfish love. "Poor devil," one of them said, in a tone of such humiliating compassion that I was ashamed of myself in the very grave. "He had to bite the dust pretty early," the other sighed. "But it was better so both for him and for myself. I could not have held him above water much longer." ... From sheer astonishment I knocked my head so hard against the side of the coffin that a bump remained. "When did you ever hold me above water?" I wanted to cry out but I considered that they could not hear me. Then the first one spoke again. "I often found it hard enough to aid him with my counsel without wounding his vanity. For we know how vain he was and how taken with himself." "And yet he achieved little enough," the other answered. "He ran after women and sought the society of inferior persons for the sake of their flattery. It always astonished me anew when he managed to produce something of approximately solid worth. For neither his character nor his intelligence gave promise of it." "In your wonderful charity you are capable of finding something excellent even in his work," the other replied. "But let us be frank: The only thing he sometimes succeeded in doing was to flatter the crude instincts of the mob. True earnestness or conviction he never possessed." "I never claimed either for him," the first eagerly broke in. "Only I didn't want to deny the poor fellow that bit of piety which is demanded. _De mortuis_----" And both voices withdraw into the distance. "O you grave-robbers!" I cried and shook my fist after them. "Now I know what your friendship was worth. Now it is clear to me how you humiliated me upon all my ways, and how when I came to you in hours of depression you administered a kick in order that you might increase in stature at my expense! Oh, if I could only."... I ceased laughing. "What silly wishes, old boy!" I admonished myself. "Even if you could master your friends; your enemies would drive you into the grave a thousand times over." And I determined to devote my whole thought henceforth to the epoch-making invention of my impregnating fluid called "_Helminothanatos"_ or "Death by Worms." But new voices roused me from my meditation. I listened. "That's where what's his name is buried," said one. "Quite right," said the other. "I gave him many a good hit while he was among us--more than I care to think about to-day. But he was an able fellow. His worst enemy couldn't deny that." I started and shuddered. I knew well who he was: my bitterest opponent who tortured me so long with open lashes and hidden stabs that I almost ended by thinking I deserved nothing else.