"Not that way. What they may do
afterwards with these broken bones does not much concern either you
or me.
"It's a good place to die in," he continued. "A man can think up
here."
It was difficult to feel sorry for him, his own fate appearing to
make so little difference to himself. The world was still full of
interest to him--not his own particular corner of it: that, he gave
me to understand, he had tidied up and dismissed from his mind. It
was the future, its coming problems, its possibilities, its new
developments, about which he seemed eager to talk. One might have
imagined him a young man with the years before him.
One evening--it was near the end--we were alone together. The
woodcutter and his wife had gone down into the valley to see their
children, and the nurse, leaving him in my charge, had gone for a
walk. We had carried him round to his favourite side of the hut
facing the towering mass of the Jungfrau. As the shadows lengthened
it seemed to come nearer to us, and there fell a silence upon us.
Gradually I became aware that his piercing eyes were fixed on me,
and in answer I turned and looked at him.
"I wonder if we shall meet again," he said, "or, what is more
important, if we shall remember one another."
I was puzzled for the moment.
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