, or found it out
myself. I have it all down in my record that I wrote out for my own
use and pleasure: all that lie here, and a few more too, are
chronicled in it.

Now we are in the churchyard.

Here, behind this white railing, where once a rose tree grew--it is
gone now, but a little evergreen from the next grave stretches out its
green fingers to make a show--there rests a very unhappy man; and yet,
when he lived, he was in what they call a good position. He had enough
to live upon, and something over; but worldly cares, or to speak more
correctly, his artistic taste, weighed heavily upon him. If in the
evening he sat in the theatre to enjoy himself thoroughly, he would be
quite put out if the machinist had put too strong a light into one
side of the moon, or if the sky-pieces hung down over the scenes when
they ought to have hung behind them, or when a palm tree was
introduced into a scene representing the Berlin Zoological Gardens, or
a cactus in a view of the Tyrol, or a beech tree in the far north of
Norway. As if that was of any consequence. Is it not quite immaterial?
Who would fidget about such a trifle? It's only make-believe, after
all, and every one is expected to be amused. Then sometimes the public
applauded too much to suit his taste, and sometimes too little.
"They're like wet wood this evening," he would say; "they won't kindle
at all!" And then he would look round to see what kind of people they
were; and sometimes he would find them laughing at the wrong time,
when they ought not to have laughed, and that vexed him; and he
fretted, and was an unhappy man, and at last fretted himself into his
grave.

Here rests a very happy man. That is to say, a very grand man. He was
of high birth, and that was lucky for him, for otherwise he would
never have been anything worth speaking of; and nature orders all that
very wisely, so that it's quite charming when we think of it. He used
to go about in a coat embroidered back and front, and appeared in the
saloons of society just like one of those costly, pearl-embroidered
bell-pulls, which have always a good, thick, serviceable cord behind
them to do the work. He likewise had a good stout cord behind him, in
the shape of a substitute, who did his duty, and who still continues
to do it behind another embroidered bell-pull. Everything is so nicely
managed, it's enough to put one into a good humour.

[Illustration: THE CHURCHYARD NARRATION.]

Here rests--well,