And he had a good word to say for me--_he?_ His voice went on. "To-day that he is out of our way we may as well confess that we always liked him a great deal. He took life and work seriously and never used an indecent weapon against us. And if the tactics of war had not forced us to represent his excellences as faults, we might have learned a good deal from him." "It's a great pity," said the other. "If, before everything was at sixes and sevens, he could have been persuaded to adopt our views, we could perhaps have had the pleasure of receiving him into our fighting lines." "With open arms," was the answer. And then in solemn tone: "Peace be to his ashes." The other echoed: "Peace ..." And then they went on.... I hid my face in my hands. My breast seemed to expand and gently, very gently something began to beat in it which had rested in silent numbness since I lay down here. "So that is the nature of the world's judgment," I said to myself. "I should have known that before. With head proudly erect I would have gone my way, uninfluenced by the glitter of false affection as by the blindness of wildly aiming hatred. I would have shaken praise and blame from me with the same joyous laugh and sought the norm of achievement in myself alone. Oh, if only I could live once more! If only there were a way out of these accursed six boards!" In impotent rage I pounded the coffin top with my fist and only succeeded in running a splinter into my finger. And then there came over me once more, even though it came hesitatingly and against my will, a delightful consciousness of that eternal peace into which I had entered. "Would it be worth the trouble after all," I said to myself, "to return to the fray once more, even if I were a thousand times certain of victory? What is this victory worth? Even if I succeed in being the first to mount some height untrod hitherto by any human foot, yet the next generation will climb on my shoulders and hurl me down into the abysm of oblivion. There I could lie, lonely and helpless, until the six boards are needed again to help me to my happiness. And so let me be content and wait until that thing in my breast which has began to beat so impudently, has become quiet once more." I stretched myself out, folded my hands, and determined to hold no more incendiary speeches and thus counteract the trade of the worms, but rather to doze quietly into the All. Thus I lay again for a space. Then arose somewhere a strange musical sound, which penetrated my dreamy state but partially at first before it awakened me wholly from my slumber. What was that? A signal of the last day? "It's all the same to me," I said and stretched myself. "Whether it's heaven or hell--it will be a new experience." But the sound that had awakened me had nothing in common with the metallic blare of trumpets which religious guides have taught us to expect.