dead on the
hearthrug, and myself standing over him, sane, stupid, and remorseful,
with the poker in my hand.

I walked up and down the vast cold room of the marble palazzo, arraying
before me in overwhelming numbers the arguments for selfdestruction. On
a table in the middle of the room stood a phial of prussic acid which I
had procured long before in London, it being a conviction of mine that
every man ought to have ready to hand a sure means of exit from the
world. I paused many times in front of the little blue phial. One lift
of the hand, one toss of the head, and all would be over. At last I
extracted the cork, and the faint smell of almonds reached my nostrils.
I recorked the phial and lit a cigarette. This I threw away half smoked
and again approached the table of death. I began to feel a strong
natural disinclination to swallow the stuff. "This," said I, "is sheer
animal cowardice." I again uncorked the phial. A new phase of the matter
appeared to me. "It is the act of a craven to shirk the responsibilities
of life. Can you be such a meanspirited creature as not even to have
the courage to live?" "No," said I, "I have a valiant spirit," and I
set down the bottle. "Bah," whispered the familiar imp of suicide at my
elbow. "You are just afraid to die." I took up the bottle again. But the
other taunter had an argument equally strong, and once more I put the
phial uncorked on the table.

Thus between two cowardices, one of which I must choose, stood I, like
the ass of Buridan. I lit another cigarette and excogitated the problem.
I smoked two cigarettes, walking up and down that vast, chill apartment,
while the air grew sickly sweet with the smell of almonds, which
intensified the physical repugnance the first faint odour had
occasioned. I began to shiver with cold. The stove had burned out before
I entered, and I had not considered it worth while to have it filled for
the few minutes that would remain to me to live. I had not reckoned on
the ass's bundles of cowardice.

"I may as well be warm," thought I, "while I prove to my complete
satisfaction that it is more cowardly to live than to die. There is no
very great hurry."

I caught up a travelling-rug with which I had tried to soften the
asperities of an imitation Louis XV couch, and throwing it over my
shoulders, resumed my pilgrimage. I soon lost myself in the problem and
did not notice a corner of the rug gradually slipping down towards the
floor.

"I'll