Humanity is the desire for novelty founded upon the fear of death - Henri Barbusse

Nous serons reconnus par les grandes douleurs.

Once, bowed in the evening light, the dead man had said, "After my death, life will continue. Every detail in the world will continue to occupy the same place quietly. All the traces of my passing will die little by little, and the void I leave behind will be filled once more." He was mistaken in saying so. He carried all the truth with him. Yet we, we saw him die. He was dead for us, but not for himself. I feel there is a fearfully difficult truth here which we must get, a formidable contradiction. But I hold on to the two ends of it, groping to find out what formless language will translate it. Something like this: "Every human being is the whole truth." I return to what I heard. We do not die since we are alone. It is the others who die. And this sentence, which comes to my lips tremulously, at once baleful and beaming with light, announces that death is a false god.

"I detected sarcoma." He put his finger on his neck. "Right here."

The other man nodded — his head seemed to be nodding continually — and muttered:

"Yes. There's no possibility of operating."

"Of course not," said the old specialist, his eyes shining with a kind of sinister irony. "There's only one thing that could remove it — the guillotine."