His heart
was bursting. She was after all his Aholibah, his first love. A crowd
gathered. He asked for a doctor. A dozen students ran in a dozen
different directions. The tired horse stamped its feet impatiently, and
once it whinnied. The coachman lighted his pipe and watched his dying
fare. Some wag sang a drunken lyric, and Ambroise repeated at
intervals:--
"Please not so close, Messieurs. She needs air." Then she moved her head
and murmured:
"Where's--my Prince? My--Prince Ambroise--I have something--" Her head
fell back on his shoulder with a rigid jerk. In her clenched fingers he
recognized his purse--smudged, torn, the serpent mouth gaping, the eyes
empty.... And for the last time Ambroise saw scarlet--saw scarlet
double. His two personalities had separated, never to merge again.
IV
REBELS OF THE MOON
"On my honour, friend," Zarathustra answered, "what thou speakest
of doth not exist: there is no devil nor hell. Thy soul will be
dead even sooner than thy body: henceforth fear naught."
The moon, a spiritual gray wafer, fainted in the red wind of a summer
morning as the two men leaped a ditch soft with mud.
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