ing with kidney trouble, 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
be averted, the mere knowledge of its possibility at a certain hour
again filled him with horror. It was probable that some day he should
be assassinated, but it would not happen to-morrow--it would not happen
to-morrow--and he could sleep undisturbed, as if he were really immortal.
Fools--they did not know what a great law they had dislodged, what an
abyss they had opened, when they said in their idiotic kindness: "At one
o'clock in the afternoon, your Excellency!"

"No, not at one o'clock in the afternoon, your Excellency, but no one
knows when. No one knows when! What?"

"Nothing," answered Silence, "nothing."