him his dismissal, precisely as I might have freed myself from the
annoying spot by angrily smashing the window-pane. The physicians do not
believe that one human being can unite himself at death with another
human being and continue to live on in him with obstinate persistence.
It is their opinion that a man standing at a window should see the house
opposite but never the wall of the room behind his back.

The physicians only believe in things that _are_. Such
superstitions as that a man can carry dead men within him and see them
standing in front of him so distinctly that they hide a picture behind
them from his sight, do not come within the range of the gentlemen's
reasoning. In their lives death plays no part. A patient who dies ceases
to be a patient. And what does the day know of the night, though the one
forever succeeds the other?

But I know it is not I who forcibly drag the dead comrade through my
life. I know that the dead man's life within me is stronger than my own
life. It may be that the shapes I see flitting across the wall papers,
cowering in corners and staring into the lighted room from dark
balconies, and knocking so hard on the windows that the panes rattle,
are only visions and nothing more. Where do they come from? _My_
brain furnishes the picture, _my_ eyes provide the projection, but
it is the dead man that sits at the crank. He tends to the film. The
show begins when it suits Him and does not stop as long as He turns the
crank. How can I help seeing what He shows me? If I close my eyes the
picture falls upon the inside of my lids, and the drama plays inside of
me instead of dancing far away over doors and walls.

I should be the stronger of the two, they say. But you cannot kill a
dead man, the physicians should know that.