They only became stronger and more awful if by a word
or a gesture, by the sight of a funeral or of a graveyard, he was
reminded that he, too, must die. Anxious to avoid such warnings, he
never went into any street that led to the cemetery, nor ever slept on
his back with hands folded across his breast.
He had two lives, as it were; his former life, ample and obvious, which
could not give a thought to death, but ignored it, being concerned
about its own affairs, While hoping to live on for ever, cost what it
might; and another life, mysterious, indefinite, obscure, that, as a
worm in an apple, secretly gnawed at the core of his former life,
poisoning it, making it insufferable.
It was owing to this double life that Semenoff, when at last he found
himself face to face with death and knew that his end was nigh, felt
scarcely any fear. "Already?" That is all he asked, in order to know
exactly what to expect.
When in the faces of those around him he read the answer to his
question, he merely wondered that the end should seem so simple, so
natural, like that of some heavy task, which had overtaxed his powers.
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