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936 REMOVING-DAY |
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punishment in himself, " the gnawing worm, which dies not for ages and ages." If there was written on the glass " Oblivion ", there is written on the keg " Remembrance ".
' If I read a good book, an historical writing, I must always think of the person I read about as coming into Death's omnibus at last; I must think about which of his deeds Death took out of the savings bank for him, what pocket-money he took into the land of eternity.
'There was once a French king, I have forgotten his name ; the names of good things are forgotten sometimes, even by me, but they are sure to come back again. It was a king who in time of famine became his people's benefactor, and the people raised a monument of snow to him, with this inscription : " Quicker than this melts, you helped ! " I can imagine, that Death gave him, in allusion to this monument, a single snow-flake which never melts, and that it flew like a white snow-bird over his royal head into the land of immortality.
' There was also Louis the Eleventh ; yes, I remember his name, one always remembers bad things well. A trait of him comes often into my mind; I wish that one could say the story was untrue. He ordered his constable to be beheaded ; he could do that, whether it was just or unjust; but the constable's innocent children, the one eight years old, the other seven, he ordered to be stationed at the place of execution and to be sprinkled with their father's blood ; then to be taken to the Bastille and put in an iron cage, where they did not even get a blanket to cover them ; and King Louis sent the executioners to them every week and had a tooth pulled from each of them, so that they should not have too good a time ; and the eldest said : " My mother would die of sorrow, if she knew that my little brother suffered so much ; pull out two of my teeth, and let him go free ! " The tears came to the executioner's eyes at that, but the King's will was stronger than the tears, and every week two children's teeth were brought to the king on a silver salver; he had demanded them, and he got them. These two teeth, I imagine, Death took out of life's savings bank for King Louis XI, and gave him them to take with him on his journey into the great land of immortality ; they fly, like two flames of fire, |
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