In his night-clothes, with his beard disheveled by his restless
movements, with his angry eyes, the dignitary resembled any other
angry old man who suffered with insomnia and shortness of breath. It
was as if the death which people were preparing for him, had made him
bare, had torn away from him the magnificence and splendor which had
surrounded him-and it was hard to believe that it was he who had so
much power, that his body was but an ordinary plain human body that
must have perished terribly in the flame and roar of a monstrous
explosion. Without dressing himself and not feeling the cold, he sat
down in the first armchair he found, stroking his disheveled beard,
and fixed his eyes in deep, calm thoughtfulness upon the unfamiliar
plaster figures of the ceiling.

So that was the trouble! That was why he had trembled in fear and had
become so agitated! That was why Death seemed to stand in the corner
and would not go away, could not go away!

"Fools!" he said emphatically, with contempt.

"Fools!" he repeated more loudly, and turned his head slightly toward
the door that those to whom he was referring might hear it. He was
referring to those whom he had praised hut a moment before, who in the
excess of their zeal had told him of the plot against his life.

"Of course," he thought deeply, an easy, convincing idea arising in
his mind. "Now that they have told me, I know, and feel terrified, but
if I had not been told, I would not have known anything and would have
drunk my coffee calmly. After that Death would have come-but then, am
I so afraid of Death? Here have I been suffering with kidney trouble,