and I must surely die from it some day, and yet I am not
afraid-because I do not know anything. And those fools told me: 'At
one o'clock in the afternoon, your Excellency!' and they thought I
would be glad. But instead of that Death stationed itself in the
corner and would not go away. It would not go away because it was my
thought. It is not death that is terrible, but the knowledge of it: it
would be utterly impossible to live if a man could know exactly and
definitely the day and hour of his death. And the fools cautioned me:
'At one o'clock in the afternoon, your Excellency!' "

He began to feel light-hearted and cheerful, as if some one had told
him that he was immortal, that he would never die. And, feeling
himself again strong and wise amidst the herd of fools who had so
stupidly and impudently broken into the mystery of the future, he
began to think of the bliss of ignorance, and his thoughts were the
painful thoughts of an old, sick man who had gone through endless
experience. It was not given to any living being-man or beast -to know
the day and hour of death. Here had he been ill not long ago and the
physicians told him that he must expect the end, that he should make
his final arrangements-but he had not believed them and he remained
alive. In his youth he had become entangled in an affair and had
resolved to end his life; he had even loaded the revolver, had
"written his letters, and had fixed upon 'the hour for suicide-but
before the very end he had suddenly changed his mind. It would always
be thus-at the very last moment something would change, an unexpected
accident would befall-no one could tell when he would die.

"At one o'clock in the afternoon, your Excellency!" those kind asses
had said to him, and although they had told him of it only that death
might he averted, the mere knowledge of its possibility at a certain