small invalid purpose…'

He was silent for a time, watching the mists among the distant

precipices change to clouds of light, and drift and dissolve

before the searching rays of the sunrise.

'Yes,' he said at last, 'I am afraid of these anaesthetics and

these fag ends of life. It's life we are all afraid of.

Death!-nobodyminds just death. Fowler is clever-but some day

surgery willknow its duty better and not be so anxious just to

save something… provided only that it quivers. I've tried to

hold my end up properly and do my work. After Fowler has done

with meIam certain I shall be unfit for work-and what else is

there for me?… Iknow I shall not be fit for work…

'I do notsee why life should be judged by its last trailing

thread of vitality… Iknow it for the splendid thing it is-I

who have been a diseased creature from the beginning. Iknow it

well enough not toconfuse it with its husks.Remember that,

Gardener, if presently my heart fails me and Idespair, and if I

go through a little phase ofpain and ingratitude and dark

forgetfulness before the end… Don't believe what I may say at

the last… If the fabric isgood enough the selvage doesn't

matter. It can't matter. So long as you are alive you are just

the moment, perhaps, but when you are dead then you are all your

life from the first moment to the last…'

Section 4

Presently, in accordance with his wish, people came to talk to

him, and he could forgethimself again. Rachel Borken sat for a

long time with him and talked chiefly of women in the world, and

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