A NEW YEAR'S FABLE
253
fallen if my friend had not supported me and put me in a chair.
There are people, I know, who are not afraid of death:
those heroes have nothing they must protect. I confess I shook
with fear. When I complete my task, then I can die. But not
now!
"I don't believe it," I whispered.
"Get out!" he suddenly shouted, "You are stealing my
time! I am
ill
myself. I have only a year and a half left!"
However, he stopped me in the doorway and said almost
as though he were reciting it:
"It's an old disease, and
it
mostly affects talented people.
They get it in an acute form. People with soured characters ail
quietly and die imperceptibly."
"And you haven't yet discovered any cure?"
"We have discovered a great many things. But we haven't
learned to cure our patients yet. Still we have discovered a thing
or two."
And then he uttered the following enigmatic words:
"He who sees the owl distinctly is already half-saved."
Then he banged the door behind me.
"Do I see it distinctly? I must make sure," I thought.
Then, in the silence, I suddenly heard a very precise
ticking: the watch, the bandit's present to me, was doing its
job and meticulously counting off the seconds. Hearing the
clear ticking, I pulled out the heavy steel bulb, inserted the
ornamented key and wound the spring. I turned the key some
twenty times until it finally would not turn any more. That
was all! The watch was now wound for a year.
"I must hurry! I must organize my life," I prompted
myself. For the first time in my life I was driving myself real–
istically, that is to say, cold-bloodedly.
The clean frosty evening greeted me with gay lights, the
noise of cars, and the distant glimmer of stars.
"I shall meditate and gaze at the stars," I decided. And
the starry skies seemed to descend toward me as if to, give me
